I did extensive research on this subject. Reviewed many trials. It will take the more expensive plastic. Can't remember but It think it was the weight. Must be sealed at the edges and the moisture content must be maintained (in Oklahoma that's a pill). It only works at the higher temps so you can expect the job to be done mostly in peak heat, but you probably already know that. In short, those doing the test said it was only worth the trouble if there was a disease involved. Even then, we know that altering the soil with organic matter can rid disease over time.

You know, I prefer to use compost on top of the area or compost dug in ground. I cover it and let the bugs work the soil and go back and pull it all out in huge chunks (In spring and summer this can be short; a few days to a week.) I think they alter the chemistry or the pH and the Bermuda slows down in spreading. The main Bermuda plants get bigger and stronger but it doesn't spread as much beneath the compost. Maybe without the organic matter it thinks it's struggling and automatically spreads instead of growing in size. When I go back I yank out that huge plant .. runner and all by hand.

It just takes time, but I find that composting the area is much faster in my yard.

And I never get it all. I don't think it's possible.

It might work if you keep the soil moist enough and leave the plastic on long enough, but it might not. Bermuda is hard to kill with solarization. I think that solarization works better on weed seeds and on some soilborne diseases than on bermuda grass.

My brother put down very thick (I think it was either 4 mm or 6 mm) black plastic to smother the bermuda grass and weeds near his house in the late 1980s. He cut a few holes in the plastic and planted some small shrubs and vines in those holes (which was a mistake because the bermuda grew up through the shrubs and vines).

Perhaps the solarization would have worked better if he hadn't planted those few plants through the holes cut in the plastic. He covered the black plastic with white marble rock chips which helped keep the plastic in place, but which also might have kept the black plastic and soil beneath from heating up as much as it otherwise would have. He fully expected that he could have his little shrubs and vines growing and developing while the heat killed the bermuda underneath the black plastic and also neutralized all the weed seeds.

The end result? Five years later when we lifted that black plastic, the bermuda grass still was there. The stolons had all begun crawling around on the ground instead of below ground, and they were big and fat....sort of resembling big, fat asparagus spears. I'd never seen bermuda runners that fat before in my life...and they were white due to lack of sunlight. However, the bermuda was still alive. Nothing else, like broadleaf weeds was alive there however. We spent weeks and weeks digging out all the stolons, runners and roots and we burned them all to ensure they didn't root in the compost pile or something.

From that experience, I sort of rejected the idea of solarization as something I believed in. However, I think that his attempt to also plant desirable plants into the plastic and to cover the plastic with a thin layer of rock mulch probably worked against him. I have smothered out bermuda grass with plastic laid on it, but double layers of cardboard worked better for me than plastic....and it didn't really die underneath the plastic either. As soon as I lifted the plastic, the bermuda sprouted almost the next day.

Maybe if you sprayed it with a grass killer type herbicide first and let the bermuda grass die, and then covered the area with plastic to solarize anything that survived the herbicide....that might work.

I used old carpet and good quality landscape cloth on my path and now it is welded together with Bermuda runners. Round Up works if you aren't opposed to it. I use it sparingly in the vegetable garden. You can smother Bermuda but new runners creep in from the sides and edges. If you can stop it around the edge of the plastic, it might work.

In this part of the country fighting Bermuda is as much a part of gardening as planting seed. I try to did a ditch around my garden and fill it with organic matter and then just attack the Bermuda as it tries to cross the border. If I keep a good mulch down I have to fight a lot less. Last year I had a large sheet of Galvalume left from a project, I left it laying on a patch of Bermuda for months in the summer heat. When I removed the steel everything was dead, for a while. I am not sure I can even find that spot now.

Larry

I waited to see what everyone else would say, but my opinion is about the same. :) Chemicals or pulling are the most effective methods I have used, and even then....it's a never ending battle. I do like the "bermuda only" grass killer. It's more expensive than Roundup, but it is safer to my gardens in my hands!

Lisa

I've been doing this behavior all day long. I, officially, hate bermuda. Bill was giggling at me when he overheard me talking, "Get. Out. Of. My. Garden Bed."

He suggested I rest. lol

Dang. Should have known that if there really was a shortcut, I would have retained hearing about it from one of our many "bleeping bermuda" threads!

I have found that digging the sod out first, then adding in my "good" dirt and mounding as shown in the photo, edging with bricks and metal landscape edging doesn't do a whole lot (hope I just saved someone a entire season by mentioning that!)

What we have found effective after the first bad season of bermuda influx (likely from poor sod removal before piling garden mix on), digging the entire plot each spring and hand removing as many stolons as possible drastically cut down on the growth last year. We just did the same thing last weekend (dig, turn, remove any stolons we found) and piled cardboard and mulch in the paths (FYI, I have tons of 8' long cardboard boxes left over from our hardwood floor project if anyone in OKC needs it.)

We'll see if I can tell an improvement this year over last - this might become an annual event.

I have resorted to digging a 6" trench in the shape of a 'v' around my garden beds. At least, only the deeper stolons will cross over. I don't like weed-eating. bill can mow right over the edge and the grass falls into the trench.

Established Bermuda is deep rooted so solarization won't work. You'd be better served using Round Up, but only when the Bermuda is vigorously growing and the wind isn't a factor. Solarization works best when you lightly till the soil, water it, then apply clear plastic, not black plastic.

The way I have always done this is to patiently and carefully dig it out in rows the width of a shovel full. You go down one shovel-ful, shake out all the grass and all the roots and then do the next then the next then the next. Then start row two and on and on. Its not as bad as it seems and it works. Its a lot of standing up and squatting down but not that bad really.

I always expanded my beds this way so naturally the way it worked out was I did it in stages as I needed more space for plants (thats a great motivator). If I wanted a new bed, I did the same thing, row by row. You need to turn over that dirt no matter what method you use to get rid of the bermuda in the end anyway so this made the most sense in expanding bed sizes, you kill two birds with one shovel full. When going back to add compost or amendments, every now and then I'd see a root or a bit I missed but these were easily dealt with in the soft turned over soil. Keep watch during the first year for any other grass that you might have missed and nip it in the bud, the soil is still loose that first year.

We finally cleared two areas of the lawn that was left after years of expanding beds and for that we used round-up late in the summer since this was not to be a planted area. The next spring it was dead and we covered it with sand & river rock gravel. The grass never came back and there is no bermuda left anywhere on the entire property. Yea! I hate bermuda.

This is a very good time of the year to do this, its cool and the ground is soft. You will be surprised how many square feet you can cover in a single afternoon and the amount of discarded bermuda you will end up lugging to the trash pick-up.