If I hope to get ahead of the bermuda grass in my garden paths, I guess I better start in January. I just wish the folks who thought bermuda grass was a good idea had checked into that common name of “Devil Grass!”
My plan of attack is to cover the dormant grass in leaves, top with thick cardboard and more leaves. When the spring rains wet it all down I hope it will rot out the bermuda grass. This is the only non-chemical way I’ve found to overcome it. I got the idea from noticing that a thick layer of oak leaves that have matted down over the lawn and left patches of bermuda-free zone (for a while, at least).
I’ll let you know what happens. Thanks for stopping by!
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I am buring the bermuda in mulch. It helped so much last fall
Our neighbor Richard has killed bermuda grass by putting sheets of roofing “tin” on the paths or dormant beds. The tin gives a combination of extreme heat and drought. But my idea is what you really want is to keep the bermuda grass out of the vegetable or flower bed. So, what you need is a moat around the bed. In our garden, the bermuda grass gets under the landscape timber border and the only way to get it out (short of poison) is to pull up the landscape timbers (once a year?) and dig out the bermuda grass. Susan
That sounds like a plan. A good heavy layer of cardboard will block out all the light.
Thanks for stopping by Kate! When I lived in NC I noticed that cardboard and newspaper under mulch would still be intact the following year. Here in AR, I can’t keep it intact long enough! I think the heat must break it down more quickly. The good part of that is I regularly used shredded newspaper under chip mulch around shrubs and trees –and barring the scratching of the chickens– it breaks down so quick I don’t have to find it blowing across the yard later! Great to hear your experiences!
This should work … I got rid of sections of quack grass by putting down newspaper. It worked well. I laid down the newspapers and covered them with pea gravel in fall. I left it for a year though … and was amazed at how little of the newspaper actually decomposed.
Good luck!