When Does Bermuda Grass Turn Green? Spring Green-Up Dates Where You Live

Bermuda grass turns green in spring once the soil warms to about 65°F and the nights stop dipping much below 60°F. In a normal year green-up runs from roughly the last frost until nights reach 60°F, so a healthy lawn is fully green by mid-April on the Gulf Coast and in Charleston, by mid-May in Columbia, Memphis and Little Rock, by late May in Atlanta, Raleigh and Oklahoma City, and not until early June in Richmond, Nashville and Knoxville.

Most answers stop at “March to May, depending on your region.” Below are the actual normal-year dates for 33 Southern and transition-zone cities, worked out from NOAA’s 1991–2020 climate normals and checked against 13 published extension observations, plus the reasons a lawn can lag weeks behind its neighbors.

What makes Bermuda grass turn green

Bermuda grass is a warm-season grass. After fall frosts it goes dormant and stays brown until warm weather returns in spring.²⁴ The leaves die back, but the plant regrows from its crowns and from the nodes on its runners (stolons) and underground stems (rhizomes).¹⁴ Soil temperature sets the pace. University of Georgia turfgrass specialist Clint Waltz puts it plainly:²

Warm-season turf green-up is dependent on the soil temperature reaching 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Warm afternoons start the process, but cool nights hold it back. The University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service says Bermuda grass begins greening after warm days but never really³

produces significant growth until night temperatures are 60 degrees F for about a week

That is why green-up is gradual. In the low desert of Arizona, the University of Arizona sees the first green in February, while active growth resumes only in April, once 60°F soil temperatures are consistent.¹⁸ Wet soils warm more slowly, Waltz notes, because water buffers heat,² and the University of Tennessee adds that Bermuda grass in wet or north-facing soils may be slow to recover from dormancy.¹⁴ UGA tracks soil temperature at a depth of four inches.² You can check yours with a probe thermometer at that depth, or on a state network such as the Oklahoma Mesonet’s 4-inch soil temperature map.

When Bermuda grass turns green in 33 Southern cities

Neither soil temperature nor a week of warm nights shows up on a calendar, so we used the two air-temperature signals the extension sources tie to green-up and looked them up in NOAA’s 1991–2020 normals for the weather station nearest each city.¹

• The window opens around the last frost. Clemson Extension warns that new green leaves can be frozen back by late frosts, so we list the median last 32°F frost (half of springs have a later one) and the 1-in-10 late date (only 10% of springs freeze after it).⁴
• It closes when normal nights reach 60°F. That is Arkansas Extension’s steady-growth signal.³ In every extension report we checked (Table 2), a healthy lawn was green by then.

Expect the first green blades soon after the frosts end and a fully green lawn by the last column, earlier in a warm spring and later in a cold one. For any other ZIP code, look up your last frost date and its odds, or read what the 10%, 50% and 90% frost odds mean.

The regional picture

Across 13,054 ZIP codes in 13 humid Southern states, the 60°F-night date arrives first in Florida (state median April 8) and along the Gulf Coast, then in Louisiana (April 30) and Texas (May 5), and last in Tennessee (June 2), Virginia (June 7) and Kentucky (June 11).¹ In the 12,312 of those ZIP codes that get a frost most years, the window from the median last frost to 60°F nights lasts a median 58 days, and half of them fall between 55 and 62 days. Green-up takes about eight weeks almost everywhere in the South; only its starting date moves.

One city in detail: Raleigh, North Carolina

Raleigh shows why a lawn can look half-green for weeks. Normal afternoons reach 70°F by about April 9, yet the median last frost is March 28, the 1-in-10 late frost is April 12, and normal nights don’t reach 60°F until May 24.¹ NC State Extension expects a Bermuda lawn to be fully green typically between early April and May,⁵ right inside that window.

Do the dates match what extension services see?

We compared our windows with every state-specific green-up timing we could find from a university extension service. Some describe Bermuda grass, some lawns in general; one is a single spring.

None of the 13 contradicts the window. The published dates for the start of green-up sit near the last frost, and the dates for a fully green lawn sit at or before the 60°F-night date. Treat your city’s window as a guide to when to expect color, not as a promise. A warm March can start it early, and a cold April can stall it.

Why your Bermuda grass is late, or patchy

When one lawn is green and the one next door is still tan, the cause is usually one of these.

It greened up early, then froze

A warm spell can wake Bermuda grass before the frosts are over. Clemson Extension says it is⁴

not unusual for bermudagrass to green up and get burnt back several times

The University of Arkansas warns that winter injury usually follows when dormancy is interrupted by unseasonably warm weather and then by freezing temperatures.¹² NC State saw exactly that in 2018: the worst-damaged Bermuda lawns had greened up in February and were hit by cold in March.¹⁰ In 2023, after early green-up and hard frosts in late March, NC State’s Fred Yelverton noted the grass was not dead but needed 4 to 6 weeks of hot weather to recover.¹¹ Compare the date your lawn first greened with the 1-in-10 late frost date in Table 1: anything earlier was at risk.

Cool nights and cold, wet soil

A wet winter slows things down because wet soil warms slowly.² In Arkansas’s cool, wet spring of 2015, the county agent reported that greening was delayed in March and cool April nights prevented much growth.³ In northwest Florida, UF/IFAS Extension says weak or injured lawns recover slowly in spring because frequent cool nights keep the root zone cool, and most years it is well into May before lawns improve.²² North-facing slopes and shade also lag.¹⁴ Bermuda grass is not shade tolerant, and Texas A&M says it may struggle in moderate to dense shade.⁶

Overseeded ryegrass is still in charge

If the lawn was overseeded with ryegrass for winter color, the ryegrass competes with the waking Bermuda grass for water, light and nutrients, and in a cool spring it can persist, says Clemson Extension.¹⁷ Clemson suggests mowing the ryegrass down to about an inch in spring to weaken it, without scalping the Bermuda.¹⁷ In Arizona, non-overseeded Bermuda grass transitions earlier and starts vigorous growth sooner.¹⁸ In Tennessee, UT Extension times herbicide transition aids from mid-April through mid-May, following the label.¹⁹

Thatch, leaves and last year’s growth

A thick thatch layer slows the spring transition, according to UGA.⁹ Dead leaf material shades the soil too. NC State says removing leaves in winter enables earlier and more consistent green-up,⁵ and Arkansas Extension suggests mowing slightly shorter before growth starts to reduce shading and warm the soil faster.³³

It was fed too early

Fertilizer won’t make Bermuda grass green up sooner. UGA warns that late-winter or early-spring feeding can break dormancy early and leave the grass with no reserves when the inevitable late cold snap hits.⁹ Texas A&M says not to apply nutrients before full green-up.⁶

Round dead patches that don’t green up

Circular tan or straw-colored patches that stay dead while the rest of the lawn greens are often spring dead spot. NC State describes sunken patches from 2 inches to 3 feet across, usually on lawns 3 to 5 years old, appearing as Bermuda grass breaks dormancy.⁵ The fungus is active in fall but shows only the next spring.¹⁴ Map the patches. NC State times treatment for fall, not spring.⁵

Dead or just dormant? Two checks

Before you replant, find out whether anything is alive underground. The University of Tennessee says recovery depends on the crowns and the nodes on the stems, and even when leaves and above-ground runners died, plants can regrow from rhizomes below the soil. Healthy rhizomes are not green, but they are fleshy and firm and usually snap when torn.¹⁴

For a firmer answer, Texas A&M AgriLife suggests an indoor test: take plugs from the worst spots, pot them in native soil, keep them watered in a sunny window, and look for greening within 7 to 10 days. Judge the crowns after about two to three weeks.¹⁵

If only patches survived, there is still hope. The University of Kentucky’s Gregg Munshaw says Bermuda grass can rebound with adequate nitrogen if there is at least one live plant per square foot, though full recovery may take a couple of months.¹⁶ If you expect winterkill, the University of Arkansas advises skipping or delaying the spring pre-emergent and letting the lawn green up first.¹³

What to do while it greens up

Every spring task on a Bermuda lawn waits for the grass, so work through them in order.

1. Put down pre-emergent before green-up. NC State times it for mid-February to early March in North Carolina, while the lawn is still brown.⁵ See when to apply pre-emergent for Southern windows and the soil-temperature trigger.
2. Mow low once, just before green-up. Clemson suggests about 1 inch, bagging or raking out the dead material, without scalping.⁴ Then start regular mowing as soon as the grass begins to turn green, says Texas A&M.⁷
3. Wait for full green before the first nitrogen. Texas A&M says to fertilize after the grass turns green and there is little chance of a late frost.⁷ Arkansas suggests about three weeks after it turns green,³³ and Texas A&M’s rule of thumb puts the first feeding about six weeks after the average last spring frost.⁸ Our guide to when to fertilize your lawn turns that rule into dates for 20 Southern cities.
4. Hold the weed killers. Clemson advises waiting until the lawn has fully greened before a post-emergent herbicide,⁴ and Virginia Tech says not to apply post-emergent broadleaf herbicides during the spring transition.²⁸
5. Water only if it is dry. Texas A&M says not to irrigate dormant Bermuda grass in late fall, winter or early spring.⁶ Once it is growing, NC State suggests about an inch of water a week, including rain.⁵ Our lawn watering guide shows how much your normal rain already covers.

Core aeration comes later, once the lawn is growing hard; see when to aerate by grass type and city.

Where Bermuda grass barely goes dormant

In South Florida, UF/IFAS Extension’s Bermuda grass guide notes that growth is year-round,²³ and normal nights in Miami never fall below 60°F.¹ Tampa and Orlando get a frost in only about one year in three, so lawns there may stay partly green through winter. In north and central Florida, UF/IFAS puts the first fertilizer in early April (central) and mid-April (north).²³

The desert West works differently: normal nights there stay cool for weeks after the afternoons turn hot. Our 60°F-night date fits Phoenix (April 13, matching Arizona’s April timing for active growth),¹⁸ but in inland Southern California and New Mexico normal lows reach 60°F only in June, and we found no extension timing there to check it against. So we left the West out of Table 1.

How we worked out these dates, and their limits

Each date uses NOAA NCEI’s 1991–2020 monthly normals for the station nearest the city’s downtown ZIP code.¹ We placed each month’s normal low at mid-month, joined the months day by day, and took the first spring day the curve reaches 60°F. Frost dates are the station’s median and 1-in-10 dates for the last 32°F night in spring. The regional figures cover every ZIP code with normals in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Three limits matter. First, the dataset has no soil temperatures, so we can’t compute the 65°F soil date; the night-temperature signal and the frost dates stand in for it, and Table 2 is our check that they line up. Second, these are normals, not a forecast; a single spring can run weeks ahead or behind. Third, a station can sit miles away, and a yard in a valley, in shade or on a north slope will lag. The methodology page explains how the site calculates every date.

Related guideWhen to Fertilize Your Lawn: A Schedule by Grass Type and Climate

Your next step

Not sure your lawn is Bermuda grass? Our guide to cool-season vs. warm-season grass shows how to tell. The same lawn goes dormant again at the first fall frost; when to stop mowing has those dates. For more on lawn species, browse our grass type guides.