There are several varieties of bermuda grass used commonly in my area, and for some purposes it is an excellent lawn grass. It withstands high temperatures and requires a whole lot less water and fertilizer than other kinds, and is less affected by a variety of pests that can be troublesome with other popular kinds of lawn grasses.

If your problem is with bermuda invading another kind of lawn, the "green" approach sometimes would be to get rid of the other grass and let the bermuda take over. It doesn't get green as early in the spring here, but will be green later in summer when the others are going back to brown.

If your problem is the bermuda that invades "garden" spaces the best approaches depend on whether you have an annual garden that's plowed (cultivated) and replanted annually or a space with established perennial plantings.

For conversion of an open grass area that contains bermuda, the "old-way" of mechanically cutting sod off in layers at least three or four inches thick and dropping it back in place upside down was once about all you had. If left for a few weeks, most of the bermuda will die out, but it must be done while the grass is growing actively (not dormant) and preferably right at the end of the growing season to limit regrowth until the soil warms the next year. This is still "moderately effective," but probably won't achieve a complete removal. Unless you really enjoy backbreaking shovel work, you'd want a real "turf plow" for the first turning. Reduction may be sufficient that cultivation the next season will permit reasonably easy manual/mechanical removal of remnants. ("Easy" in this context is from the 1890 Farmer's Dictionary which differs significantly from today's "me-too-mine wrd lst.")

For "spot" removal and to establish barriers to prevent migration from areas outside where you want to eliminate bermuda, the universally recommended tool is glyphosate - the familiar "Roundup" now sold under a variety of additional brand names.

Although using a herbicide may seem like "chemical warfare" when properly used glyphosate is environmentally benign. It must be applied to the growing leaves, where it's absorbed and transported to the roots. When the roots are killed, the leaves will wither, but the principal effect is not to kill the leaves. Exposed to the soil, any spill/excess decomposes into inert materials within hours, so there's virtually no residual effect and no runoff. Eliminating all the grassy plants in an area with glyphosate is less ecologically damaging than the runoff from a 2% excess of the fertilizer you'll probably pour on your alternate lawn grasses two or three times a year.

A proper method of application of glyphosate for small areas is to "wet mop it" with an ordinary household sponge mop dipped in the freshly mixed glyphosate mixture and squeezed almost dry. All that's required is that "some leaves" on all the individual plants get a light smear, and then the grass must be left to "grow" for a few days, until the leaves wither visibly.

If you have areas of bermuda adjacent to the place you're trying to keep clear, you can use the same mop to "wipe down" a barrier strip about a foot wide along the edges of your garden. If you repeat the mopping of the barrier whenever "something green" shows there, it should be fairly easy to prevent new migrating bermuda from crossing it, although "underground runners" can still cross under concrete sidewalks up to three or four feet wide, so some manual "picking" may still be needed.

Especially if you intend using the glyphosate periodically for barrier methods, you need to be careful to mix only amounts needed at a given time, since once mixed it loses effectiveness rapidly, often within a week or two. Unmixed concentrate, as usually sold, is seldom effective except for the season when purchased, so stocking in excessive quantities is also not recommended. Buy enough each year, but discard leftovers before the next season.

Most of the above is condensed from advice from the "lawn guy" at the State Department of Agriculture "counselling sessions for frustrated suburbanites" that I attended several years ago, before I learned that one can have a life beyond lawn maintenance and resorted to "if it doesn't try to come into the house it's a perfectly good lawn plant" and made the transition to "peaceful co-existence" with whatever grows. More recent published news doesn't indicate significant changes in recommendations for those who haven't yet discovered "equal rights for plants of all kinds."

John