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How To Make Bermuda Grass Thicker And Dark Green?

Most homeowners with a lawn prefer that it looks luxuriously green and thick. Such lawns only speak volumes about you or the homeowners as well as add a look of elegance to your property. A deep and dark Bermuda lawn can also improve the overall look of your home and neighborhood. But, how to make Bermuda grass thicker and dark green?

Make-Bermuda-Grass-Thicker-and-Dark-Green

Make Bermuda Grass Thicker And Dark Green

Bermuda grass is a type of lawn grass that is most commonly used all over the world, especially in sub-tropical and tropical regions. The grass grows faster than most other types of grasses if there are proper drainage and sunlight. Another distinct characteristic of the grass is that it is very resistant to drought and can recover quickly from damages.

Since the terrain, climatic condition, and soil condition can differ, no lawn is the same. Hence, you might need to adjust these Bermuda grass care practices a bit to suit your lawn. Getting that dark green and thick turf lawn of Bermuda grass is a matter of right watering and special care.

How To Make Bermuda Grass Thicker – What Materials Are Needed For The Job?

For growing the best Bermuda grass, you will need some different materials like:

Water

As mentioned above, Bermuda grass is fairly tolerant to drought conditions; however, if you water it once a week, it will help the roots of the grass deep enough to stay green, even in dry and hot weather conditions.

Instead of watering it for short durations several times in a week, it is better to water the Bermuda grass once a week for a period of three to five hours. This will also allow you to add an inch of water, which can be measured by setting up an empty jar on the grass.

The water then penetrates deeply into the soil, thereby helping the roots dig deeper, instead of creating a shallow foundation.

Fertilizer

Fertilizer is described by the percentages of potassium (K), phosphorus (P), and nitrogen (N) that contains in the bag. All bags of fertilizers are labeled with three numbers known as the N-P-K ratio. For Bermuda grass, you need to slow-release fertilizer with a 3-1-2 ratio.

For example, a bag of fertilizer is labeled as 12-4-8, which means that it contains 12% nitrogen, 4% phosphorus, and 8% potassium by weight. The rest 76% contains inert components that add bulk to the mix that makes it easier to spread.

You must make use of slow-release fertilizers when it comes to Bermuda grass. Most major lawn fertilizer brands will make use of a combination of slow-release and soluble forms of nitrogen.

Nitrogen is considered one of the best fertilizer ingredients that will help your Bermuda grass become green quickly. While soluble nitrogen works immediately on Bermuda grass, show-release nitrogen is absorbed in two-three months. Mostly, it is the best option to make use of nitrogen in a slow-release form. 

Aeration tools

When you perforate the soil with small holes to allow nutrients, water, and air to properly penetrate the roots of the grass, it is known as aeration. This helps the roots to grow more deeply into the soil and produce a more vigorous and stronger lawn.

The main reason to aerate the soil is to alleviate the compaction of the soil. Compacted soils can be filled with many solid particles that occupy a certain space or volume. This prevents the proper circulation of water, nutrients, and air within the soul. Heavy lawn thatch or organic debris concealed under the surface of the grass; this could potentially starve the roots from the essential elements needed for survival.

But, how to make Bermuda grass thicker by aerating? Here are a few pointers:

When your lawn has a soil layering. Soil layering means soil of finer texture is layered over the existing coarser soil. This finer layering that disrupts drainage, since water gets held in the finer-textile soil. This leads to poor root development and compacted conditioning. Aerating helps break down this layering, thereby allowing the water to flow through the soil and reach the roots.

If your lawn dries out easily and has a very spongy feel. This means that your lawn has a very excessive thatch issue. You need to aerate your soil to ensure your soil does no dry out.

When your lawn faces a lot of heavy uses, like serving as a racetrack or a neighborhood playground. Pets and children running around only contribute to soil compaction.

Mowing Tools

Keeping your Bermuda grass short will help it stay green for longer periods. If you can mow your lawn properly, your grass will grow thick and will stay that way. Rather than mowing weekly, you need to ensure that you mow according to the needs of the grass. You need to do so to maintain the appropriate height of your grass, simply by adjusting the mower to its recommended mowing height. This will ensure that your lawn does not look unattractive and thin.

Mowing is best done with the help of a commercial mower. However, you need to ensure that you maintain your mower so that the appliance is able to cut the blades cleanly and precisely, instead of simply tearing the Bermuda grass. If the grass is torn and ragged, your lawn will become suspectable to common insect pests and lawn diseases, which keep your lawn from thick and lush growth.

How Do You Use These Tools To Make Bermuda Grass Thicker And Green

Once you have collected the materials mentioned above, you can make use of them to get that lush and dark green Bermuda to enhance the look of your lawn.

How Do You Water Bermuda Grass?

It mostly takes a little finesse to water your Bermuda grass. In most cases, the lawn will require an inch of watering every week, if there has been no significant rainfall. You need to water as infrequently and deeply possible.

For instance, you need to apply a single inch of water each day, rather than stretching it out to 0.25 inches for four days. Due to this infrequent and deep watering, the roots of the Bermuda grass will be trained to grow deep into the soil where there is more moisture. If you stop watering, the water will turn into a pool or run on the surface.

If you make use of an automatic sprinkler, you should adjust the settings and the control box. Before turning on the sprinklers, you can place a straight-sided jar or rain gauge on your lawn. You need to check how much water is sprinkled in a given time span. You can also test each irrigation zone with different types of sprinkler heads; for manual sprinkler, you can make use of the gauge to whether you need to water more or less than an inch.

You need to remember that while lack of water might change the color of the Bermuda grass, excess water will kill them.

How Do You Fertilize Bermuda Grass?

Generally, Bermuda grass needs about 4-5 pounds of nitrogen per 1000-square-feet, no matter that brand of the fertilizer you purchase. In the case of slow-release nitrogen, you will have to apply 1.5 pounds of the actual nitrogen per 1000-square-feet, in mid-summer, mid-spring, and early fall.

Calculating the amount of actual nitrogen in a bag of fertilizer is not tough. You can do so simply by the weight of the bag and the N-P-K ratio. You need to multiply nitrogen’s (N) percentage by the weight of the bag. This means that a 50-pound bag with ratio 12-4-8 contains six pounds of actual nitrogen (12% of 50).

You can start spreading the fertilizer on Bermuda grass after you have the approximate measurements of the land and the amount of fertilizer that you will be needing. Granular fertilizer can be applied with the help of a hand-held spreader or a broadcast fertilizer spreader. With the help of a fertilizer spreader tool, you can start moving around slowly; be careful not to drop a lot of fertilizer in one spot, or you could burn the grass. Your goal needs to be that you spread the fertilizer evenly over the entire lawn. Do not spread light or heavy doses in one spot.

You can watch this video to get a better idea of when to fertilize your Bermuda grass lawn.

How Do You Aerate The Bermuda Grass Lawn

Aeration is one of the best ways to increase the flow of nutrients, water, and air into the root zone of the grass and make Bermuda grass thicker and green. If you want to improve the consistency and quality of your lawn’s growth, it is recommended that you aerate the lawn every year at least. You can also use it to renovate areas like compacted dog paths, poorly-drained corners, and dry banks.

During the growing season, Bermuda grass can be aerated at almost any time; however, it is not the case if the grass has been suffering from drought. If Bermuda grass is brown and been dormant for some time, aerating can disrupt the late application of pre-emergence weed control and will leave the soil open for infiltration of weed seed.

If you aerate during the spring season, it can cause some damage to the tender shoots and roots; this is because the grass does not have a lot of stored energy. The best time for aerating your lawn is late spring when the temperature of the soil can reach about 80°C and the lawn is completely green.

How To Make Bermuda Grass Dark Green?

How do you mow your Bermuda grass lawn? As soon as spring season sets down, one of your first jobs is to start mowing your brown Bermuda grass lawn to remove as much dead to-zone as you can. You can set your mower lower than normal – around 5.1-inches. Mowing needs to be done only after the snowy winter months, just before the emergence of the new grass blades. This is mostly in mid-March when the temperatures of the soil increase and some trees are in full bloom.

You should not mow below 0.5-inches or you might damage the grass stolons and rhizomes that grow near the soil surface. As you are mowing, you need to ensure that you bag the grass clippings as much as possible to prevent the accumulations of thatch and debris. You should never leave the clippings sitting on the surface of the soil.

Depending on the weather, you can start mowing your lawn in mid-March; you must not mow your lawn lower at this period than you typically do during the rest of the reason. It is recommended that you wait until the grass reaches the right height.

There are two types of lawn Bermuda grass – hybrid Bermuda like Riviera and Princess and common Bermuda like Yukon and LaPrima. For hybrid Bermuda grass, the mowing height needs to be around 3/8-1.5-inches and for common Bermuda grass, it is 2-inches.

Once you understand the correct mowing height of the Bermuda grass, you need to mow consistently and frequently. You should never allow your grass to grow tall before the next mowing session. You also need to remember that during the ensuing recovery period, the lawn will be susceptible to stresses like drought, weed competition, and heat.

Final Thoughts

With the help of the article above, we hope that you now have a better idea of how to make Bermuda grass grow thicker and better than before. There are a lot of different reasons why Bermuda grass thins out like skimpy topsoil that makes it difficult for water, nutrients, and air to reach the roots of the grass, inadequate fertilizers, minimum watering, etc.

However, maintaining your lawn and making your Bermuda grass dark green and thicker is not a tough job. All you need are some simple gardening products and you are good to go. A beautiful lawn with properly-trimmed Bermuda grass can increase the overall look of your house. With the help of these simple tools and techniques, you will be able to ensure that your lawn looks glorious.

I hope you liked the article. If you have anything to add to our how to make Bermuda grass thicker and dark green article or any questions related to any tool or technique, you can simply leave them in the comment section below. We will try to answer every query as soon as possible. And, don’t forget to share the article with your family and friends on social media.

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