First year with Bermuda lawn, is this what it looks like when it starts going dormant?

Yes that is what it is. What you see is your first heavy frost pattern. The lighter green areas are where it was the coldest and going dormant faster than the darker green areas.

Once mine started getting the tiger stripes, I just mowed it down with the rotary mower so that I would have a uniform tan color to my lawn!

That's not a bad idea. I may do that. I'm about to head out and get a pre-emergent for this crabgrass I've been pulling all year. Any suggestions?

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Prodamine aka Stonewall or Guardrail. You can pick some up at a JDL but I don't think they are open on the weekend!!

Mightyquinn wrote:Once mine started getting the tiger stripes, I just mowed it down with the rotary mower so that I would have a uniform tan color to my lawn!

Don't do that next year if you are in the transition zone where you get cold freezing weather. In fact at the end of the season you should raise the cutting height up and let it go to sleep. It insulates the ground like a blanket and buys you a few degrees of freeze protection to minimize winter kill.

I didn't cut it down real low. it is around 1.5"-2" right now!

Thanks Mightyquinn. I didn't get any yesterday on account of too many choices. I'll def. pick some Stonewall or Guardrail today.

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They sell Guardrail on ebay but it is the type you mix with water and spray on the lawn. It is around $100 for a 5lb jug that will last you years, a little pricey upfront but will save you in the long run. JDL/Lesco sells the granular you can spread and depending on the application rate you can get around 10K sq/ft out of a bag that should cost around $20.

Haha, oh wow, I was sitting here thinking maybe my Bermuda was going dormant, but I have nothing close to that patterning. I think what's happening on my lawn is that the litter from mulch mowing isn't settling in as fast due to less frequent watering and slower breakdown in the colder weather. So it just looks like it has brown interspersed when most of it is just grass clippings. The growth is almost at a standstill now, though, so I imagine this will dissipate over the next few weeks (just in time for the lawn to go dormant). The other flaw with my yard is that I have not applied iron (in Milorganite or foliar form) in months. Just urea to start November.

jltmaxx wrote:First year with Bermuda lawn, is this what it looks like when it starts going dormant?

Those are some cool looking patterns!
I've never seen anything like that up here, but the only southern grass I've seen is a few partial zoysia lawns. The zoysia and the northern stuff kind of just starts to fade to brown all over.
Is that going dormant patterning unique to bermuda?