It’s not a luscious island in a paradise of blue ocean. Not this Bermuda. It’s a sneaking, sprawling, deceitfully innocent-looking grass that’s not even native to said archipelago.
It is widely native across the eastern hemisphere. In these broad regions, I learn, Cynodon dactylon is respected; and in some lands and cultures it is religiously revered. According to Wikipedia, it is known as “durva” in Hindi, “dubo” in Nepal, “arugampul” in Tamil, used in religious ceremonies and weddings and traditional medicine.
This is not one of those lands. Here in my garden, it is a non-native, allergy-inducing, ineradicable grass that is making it difficult to grow more appropriate and desirable plants. It’s one of those situations in which “Bermuda grass” is quietly earning one of its other many names: “devil grass”.
I admit that I have come to grudgingly admire a plant that spreads tenaciously by sending out finger-slicing wiry runners… which then proceed to send taproots down six inches and more. Much more. Apparently they can reach some six feet underground, though I certainly haven’t chased any of them that far myself.
It’s going to be very difficult to eliminate. There is little question in my mind that each small chunk of root left in the soil will try to sprout to continue the ongoing domination of Planet Earth, or at least my small patch of it.
When we moved in, the grass was dormant under the searing heat of a desert June. Contrary to appearances, it was most emphatically not dead. What looked like a simple stand of withered, grassy weeds, I now believe to be the remnants of a small, once-tended Bermuda grass lawn, one that has held its own for many years against the lean soil, fierce sun, drought, and occasional deluge that make up the growing conditions here.
However, I was deluded by its brown, dry stems; and I went ahead and began planting without being overly concerned about removing all of it first. The result is that now I have it mixed into my young borders, a menace very much alive and constantly competing with every other plant in its midst.
Weeding Bermuda grass out of a garden bed is a daunting task. I was despairing over it till my sister gave me a hori for Christmas. This small implement makes a tremendous difference as it can cut straight downward, slicing and loosening soil and roots at the same time. Slow progress is now being made where before it seemed the grass was filling back in faster than I was clearing it out.
I find that even the gravelly soil here can tighten like rock round the roots when dry. This limits my clearing operations to the days immediately after rainfall—not the most common occurrence in the desert! The other option is the very disagreeable one of watering the weeds well before pulling them out.
The recent weather patterns have, however, brought occasional moisture to help. And with my hori in hand I am making headway at last. It’s a task the young Garden Assistant enjoys as he can lie alongside my patch of work and chew happily on whatever bits of debris he has collected that day.
Bermuda weeding and puppy bonding. Things could be worse, couldn’t they?!