Bermudagrass

About

A warm-season perennial grass that is a popular lawn grass in the South but a tough weed in flower beds, vegetable gardens and northern or cool-season lawns. It creeps above and below ground, and in cooler lawns it turns brown and dormant each fall.

Also called bermuda grass, manienie

How to identify it

Look for

Fine, gray-green, wiry blades with a ring of white hairs where the blade meets the stem. It runs along the ground on stolons and spreads underground by rhizomes. Seedheads are 3 to 7 finger-like spikes that fan out from one point.

Look-alikes

Crabgrass has similar seedheads, but its spikes come from different points and it dies at frost. Nimblewill is also wiry and browns in winter, but it has a tiny membrane ligule instead of a ring of hairs.

Where it grows

Southern lawns (on purpose), and as a weed in beds, borders, vegetable gardens, cool-season lawns, roadsides and orchards.

When

Greens up in late spring, grows fast through summer heat, and goes brown and dormant after frost.

How it spreads

Spreads by stolons, by rhizomes usually 1 to 6 inches deep (deeper in sandy soil), and by seed that lasts several years; cut pieces left on moist soil can root.

Most common in

What to do, gentlest first

Start at the top. Weed killers are a last step; always read and follow the label.

1. Dig it out when soil is dry By hand

   Dig out plants with every runner and rhizome you can find. Work when soil is dry, and rake up the pieces.

   Don't till wet soil; it chops stems into bits that root. Short shrubs or ground covers won't shade it out.

2. Smother or solarize Barrier

   Cover patches with black plastic for at least 6 to 8 weeks in summer, or solarize with clear plastic for 4 to 6 weeks in the sunniest months. Overlapped landscape fabric can keep runners out of beds.

   Solarizing in cool spring weather can actually help it grow.

3. Grass-selective spray in beds, glyphosate for spots Conventional spray

   In beds of flowers and shrubs, fluazifop or sethoxydim kill bermudagrass without hurting most broadleaf plants; spray again before regrowth reaches 6 inches. Glyphosate works best in late summer on green, growing plants; wait 7 days before digging or mowing.

   Read and follow the label. Many lawn herbicides kill garden plants, so keep spray and drift off beds and vegetables.

Uses, wildlife and pets

For wildlife

A caterpillar host plant for the southern skipperling butterfly.

Pets

Not listed as toxic to dogs, cats or horses by the ASPCA. NC State Extension notes it can be toxic to livestock.