the great east texas grass con

My current home and my bermuda grass
I live in Cypress Texas. The neighborhood I live in is not artistic and the homes are not charming. They are cheap. They are built well, fairly efficient, and I have fantastic neighbors, so I have much to be grateful for. But the homes are dull tract homes. Most of the homes in the surrounding neighborhoods- although more expensive and detailed, are still tract homes. Tract homes are generally the accepted norm here in Cypress. It is too bad. Tract homes leave much to be desired I will undoubtedly spend plenty of time on that soapbox in this blog.
When we moved in I attempted to beautify my home in a few ways, without putting so much into it that I knew I would never get back out. When we moved in I ripped out all of the St. Augustine grass from the front yard and put it into the backyard. I replaced it with bermuda grass. I am no agronomist, but bermuda is a grass that grows naturally here in Texas. When it grows from seed, or takes over after your st augustine dies when you don't water, it is much softer and looks like velvet when healthy and maintained. It is what is used on the roughs of most golf courses around here. In the picture you can see how soft my grass looks. I do not make that point to brag, because honestly, it is not like it is that much more expensive or takes any more TLC. I get weeds, sure, but most of them blow in from my neighbors who do not have bermuda. if they had bermuda also, the weed problems would be minimized. I believe that somtime around the early 1970s, a salesman came through east texas who was good. He was so good that he convinced hundreds, thousands, millions even, that soft, natural, local bermuda was a less desireable alternative than course, rough, scratchy st. augustine grass. What a genius. He was probably the cousin of the guy that convinced hundreds of homeowners in the Heights of Houston and other classic neighborhoods that vinyl and aluminum siding was truly the next big thing and would look fantastic on that vintage stately victorian or craftsman bungalow... yikes.