I moved to Florida a few years ago, partly out of frustration with life during the pandemic where I previously lived. There was a lot going on, and life was complicated, but I managed to acquire tenant status at a few rental properties to occupy my time as I awaited what felt like an inevitable COVID-19 demise. The terms of the lease agreements required me to either take care of the lawns myself or hire a professional. Initially, I thought this wouldn’t be a big deal. Grass is just grass—just cut it.
All the rental properties I lived in had St. Augustine grass. I became familiar with this type of grass; however, most of the irrigation parameters had been preset for me. The owners had already scheduled the fertilizer according to protocols and had stated their cutting height preferences. Generally, I only needed to replace bare spots with plugs or sod. I did the bare minimum to keep things green and healthy. Despite everyone around me being quite unimpressed that I handled my own lawn care, I largely enjoyed it.
Then, I got my own lawn.
I thought what I had was a different strain of St. Augustine grass because it was much softer and more pleasant to step on than the crunchy St. Augustine grass I had in the rental properties. I liked the feel on my feet when the grass was cut lower, so I continued to cut the lawn shorter and shorter, not realizing that I had a predominantly St. Augustine lawn which does not fare well when cut too low.
For one full season, I cut my grass short and it seemed like things were going okay. Then, at the start of spring, I tried to cut even lower. I thought this might eliminate the little dead, dormant patches and encourage fresher, greener growth.
This was a mistake.
While my lawn isn’t completely dead, it’s looking a bit worse for wear. I reduced the cutting, improved the fertilizer situation, and increased the watering. However, an interesting side effect of my mistake was the appearance of a new grassy invader: Bermuda grass.
My lawn turned out to be a mix of Bermuda and St. Augustine, but the longer blades of St. Augustine had mostly kept the Bermuda at bay and had dominated the growth in the lawn. I was fascinated by the appearance of Bermuda. I ran my fingers and feet through it. It was slim, soft, felt incredible, and spread rapidly wherever I cut the grass low. The first time I encountered a substantial patch of it, I was astonished. This grass is beautiful, invasive, and aggressive—the more I read about Bermuda, the more I became intrigued.
It’s still early days, and I haven’t committed to a full Bermuda lawn, but I’ve decided to take a measured approach and gradually expand the Bermuda’s presence without completely destroying the St. Augustine. These two grasses require different care, and it’s not entirely clear if I’ve done irreparable harm to the St. Augustine. However, I’ve resolved to let the St. Augustine dominant patches grow back to 4 inches, and where the Bermuda has taken hold, I plan to cut very low and use a reel mower to help it spread.
Here’s a photo of a border region where Bermuda thrived after I mistakenly cut too low. The left side shows where Bermuda has exploded, and the right side is a failed attempt at verticutting what probably shouldn’t have been cut low and verticut.
As a side note, I’m writing here on the blog because I will talk about grass with anyone willing to listen. It just so happens that no one in my orbit wants to hear about grass from me, so I figured I might as well return to blogging on my low-traffic blog and write about grass. There’s nothing too controversial about grass, right?