Grass and Planting Flowers

Get tips on planting flowers in your yard. Learn when you have enough grass to plant and how the grass affects the flowers’ growth.

LESLIE: Richard in Tennessee needs some help with a landscaping project. What are you doing for your staycation?

RICHARD: Well, we’re trying to decide if we can kill enough Bermuda grass to put in a flower bed …

TOM: (overlapping voices) OK. OK.

RICHARD: … and was interested in how you would go about doing that.

TOM: Well, if you know exactly where you want your flowerbed to be, you want to definitely mark this area out and you’re going to have to protect sort of the good side of the grass from the grass that you want to kill. And then what I would do is I would use a herbicide like Roundup and you would strategically spray this over the Bermudagrass that you want no more. You’re going to have to do this carefully because, remember, if it’s a windy day …

LESLIE: It’s going to go everywhere.

TOM: … the stuff’s going to spray onto the good side of the grass, then you’re going to kill more grass than you want to. But this is what’s called a roundup restoration and eventually it will kill off all the Bermudagrass in that area where you want your flower garden to be and as the grass dies, you can actually rototil it right into the soil and then plant your new garden in the same soil. It will not affect the new growth.

RICHARD: OK, that sounds good. I can do that.

TOM: Alright, just be careful as you apply it – OK, Richard? – for that reason.

RICHARD: Yeah. Yes, [I’ll work on that] (ph).

TOM: Watch the wind direction and all of that.

RICHARD: Alright. Thanks for your help.

TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.