I have bermuda grass. There is no keeping it out of the gardens. I have dug roots and dug roots this spring and it's not really even hot yet. It loves the heat and will go crazy during July and August. I have read that the roots run 3" deep, but I have dug as deep as a shovel blade and had to dig deeper to get some out.

It is the ugiest grass I have ever seen, even green. It isn't soft to walk on. I have absolutly no use for the stuff and it dominates my entire yard.

Oh, I'm sorry ;) My name is Lynn, I am not a usual poster on this forum, in fact this is the first time I have visited this particular forum, but I am so frustrated with that grass I couldn't resist putting in my two cents. I will butt out now.

Lynn

Thanks Lynn. Maybe what I have is not Bermuda but something similar because what i have is nice to walk on and it looks nicer then the "grass" around it that is burned to brown and killed off to the soil. But I could see how what I have could become a real issue in my gardens. At this point even if I wanted to get rid of the areas where this Bermuda like grass is growing I think it would be a losing battle. Just trying to find a way to live with it.
Thanks again,
Vicki

It's not so bad. I used to live in OH where my yards always had "nice grass" - bluegrass or fescue or rye. But the grass here is Bermuda or St. Augustine or centipede, not something you want to walk on in your bare feet really. But since it wants to grow more out than up, can be mowed much more short, and a lot slower to go to seed, it's not necessary to mow as often, only about every 3 weeks.

If you have solid borders, like landscape timber or brick, something you can trim against, it's not hard to keep it out of beds. Most of the time it tries to go over, where the trimmer will cut it off. When it tries to go under, which is rare and usually happens because of a low spot where the soil is uneven, it's easily stopped with a shovel in a few minutes. Not something I spend much time on even with hundreds of feet of borders that consist of bricks and timbers just laying along the edges. I think it's a decent trade.

I've never been able to stop it, ever! It climbed more than two feet down where we'd installed metal walls, and loved its new, fertile, organically rich garden home. I DETEST IT. Maybe it's not so bad in some areas, but in St. Louis, at least in my area, it is a nightmare for gardeners. I "cleaned" that bed by hand, taking out every tiny root i could see. No luck. It was covered by the next year. I couldn't grow anything well. There was only a small patch in my back yard, 30 years ago. Now it dominates, front, back, and sides. I'm so glad we've moved to our "retirement" house, and I don't see any here. Hallelujah, brothers!!!