Zone 8b. Am I being too cautious?
Looking for some advice on taking my Bermuda lawn from "good" to "great."
Overall, the lawn is in pretty good shape visually—definitely better than most of my neighbors—but I know there's room for improvement.
Current setup:
- Location: Dallas, TX
- Mower: Ego LM2206
- Height of cut: 1.7"
- Mowing: 2x per week
- Irrigation: Recently measured my sprinkler output and I'm consistently putting down about 1–1.5" of water per week.
About two weeks ago, I tried lowering the mower height, and as expected I exposed a lot of brown stem. I stuck with it briefly, but it never really greened back up. Since we're not even into the hottest part of the Dallas summer yet, I ended up raising it back to 1.7".
So my questions are:
- Should I verticut to remove some of the thatch?
- Should I scalp it lower and commit to keeping it there until it greens back up?
- Or are those kinds of changes better saved for next growing season instead of making major adjustments during a scorching Dallas summer?
Any advice from those of you who have pushed your Bermuda to the next level would be appreciated.