A weed is a plant growing where it’s not wanted. Cynodon dactylon, also called devil’s grass, couch grass, and dog’s tooth grass, will take over your yard, your flower beds, and then start to the neighbor’s yard without looking back.
Cynodon dactylon, Bermuda grass, has been used by people throughout the world. It started in tropical-to-subtropical regions, spreading with human migration. Spanish explorers, using it to feed livestock, brought the grass through the Bermuda Islands, giving it a new name. During the 18th century, Bermuda grass made a happy, warm, and humid home in the southeastern United States.
Bermuda grass, although overly aggressive, is also tough, dense, controls erosion, and is low maintenance. All of these attributes create a high demand for lawns and areas with heavy foot traffic. If only it didn’t have the aggression of a hungry alligator!
Bermuda grass is dense with tight fitting turf. Leaves are less than six inches long, attached to stems that creep until they find something to grow into or climb. The stems are built like a train track, in sections. Those sections are stolons that live above ground and rhizomes that live below ground. Bermuda grass will establish roots from any of these sections, starting a new plant quickly. Stolons and rhizomes allow the plant to spread ferociously and to rebuild quickly from any damage we try to inflict upon it.
Erosion control is a bright spot for Bermuda grass with its deep and fibrous root system. Six-foot-long roots make it drought tolerant, tough, and a soil stabilizer.
Bermuda grass is low maintenance. In warmer climates Bermuda stays green year around. In cold winters it goes dormant and turns brown. When soil temperatures rise back to 65 degrees, Bermuda wakes and returns to green and growing.
Why is Bermuda not the perfect lawn? It is invasive, moving into other turf grasses, flower beds, vegetable gardens, and even into your home. Every stolon and rhizome will root and make a new plant, ready to overtake existing plants. Like the Terminator, it comes back to life after digging, solarization, and chemical attacks.
Bermuda is patient, returning by seed or sections, rooting anew. Heavy shade may slow growth; grass will become spindly and easier to pull. In mottled shade provided by other plants, Bermuda becomes more determined to reach sunlight.
Mowers that have been used on Bermuda—whether a borrowed mower or your mow-blow-and go guy’s mower—will disperse seeds and stolons throughout your yard. Any lawn clippings must be completely composted before using them. Bermuda grass is labeled a noxious weed because it will invade native ecosystems and dominate any other plant. The moniker devil’s grass was given by farmers trying to fight the plant’s takeover of crop fields.
If your yard is under attack by Bermuda, you must return fire with the same determination. Control the grass as you would a puppy. Establish limitations and be consistent. If you notice stolons or rhizomes, dig them back to their starting point, carefully removing each piece and disposing of it properly. The Caddy Shack approach will not work, other than dynamiting pieces and plants to a further blow zone.
Mother Nature did not get it wrong; she just got it too right. If Bermuda grass could live within constraints, more yards could embrace it. Use caution if it starts your direction.
Julie Silva is a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener of Tuolumne County.
