u/Swoody11

Bird bouncing these hornworms outta the tomato club.

Hi!

First year really looking after my backyard and trying to get it to green up. Located in TN - 7B location. I believe this is mostly Bermuda?

So far I have:

Gradually cut it lower over the course of the past 1.5 months. Starting at 2” -> 1.75” -> now 1.5” (rotary mower and bought a brand new blade for the season).

Generally I’ll bag the first pass. Then take the bag off and let the clippings sit from the 2nd pass.

Applied 32-0-9 fertilizer about 2.5 weeks ago.

Water 2” over the course of the week.

I doubt any kind of real rejuvenation has been done to this lawn since the house was built back in early 2000’s.

Seems like there’s a thicker layer of dead / matted grass in most of the lawn. I’ve read about scarification/verticutting being a potential solution for Bermuda, but not sure if that’s appropriate here? Should I just take a manual rake here and try to clean it up?

Any other tips? I’m mulling the thought of buying a used, manual reel mower off of FB marketplace or the likes to get it even lower & see if that helps.