2) Yes and no on the genetic diversity question. Our resident Lady of the Grasses, Bestlawn, always recommends the use of three different cultivars in a lawn. That doesn't mean three different species, though. I have a pure KBG lawn, with Midnight II, Bedazzled, and Moonlight cultivars. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and they tend to compliment each other. I removed a three-species lawn (Kenblue KBG, some sort of fescue, and a perennial ryegrass of some kind) to put in this one. I'm certain she'll be happy to help you pick three for your area. Regarding noticing it not mixing...that depends. I'm a complete stickler and noticed it two days out from mowing because the rye grew a little faster and was 1/10" taller than the others. It made the lawn look shaggier than I liked pretty fast. If you haven't picked up that I'm a bit OCD about the lawn, you should be doing so now... The average person for whom this is not a hobby probably won't notice the difference unless two types of grass (or worse, two different colors) back onto each other. My parents love their lawn, I have to suppress my gag reflex. You can mix annual rye in if you like, but absolutely no more than 10% by weight (which is 2-3% by seed count or so). At that level, the aggressive growth and alleopathy (the tendency of ryegrasses to suppress anything around them except other ryegrasses) won't apply. 3) Arjo's right, and most of your garden shops will order it for you, too--particularly if they know you. Mine bends over backwards for me, but they know I give them all my business, I'm not hard to please, and I spend a lot. The first summer (the second as well if a fall seeding is required) are fairly important. The grass, spring-seeded, only has a few months before it gets hot--and KBG (and any other cool season grass) doesn't much like the heat. Being young, the roots are thin and not as deep as they will be later. Labor Day seedings have all of fall to sprout and start up, then spring to grow roots. They still need a bit of coddling the first summer, but not nearly as much and they'll probably do OK without it. After that, fescue and rye can go without water for a while but don't have a great dormancy scheme. Bluegrass does, however, and can survive fairly long periods on minimal water. You should still water occasionally, however, to keep the roots alive if you aren't getting 1/4" of rain every two weeks or so. To keep it green and growing, 1" a week. On the upside, bluegrass will also fill in any holes pretty well, so even if a bit dies the rest will just grow in. Bestlawn recommended cultivars for me that also happen to be fairly drought-tolerant and slow growing. It was an incidental to the traits I wanted (deepest green, mostly), but ones I am happy to have. If you want, start a new thread and list your exact location plus any characteristics you want in the grasses. Please note, however, that elites tend to be rather expensive. You can certainly have a very nice lawn with the bag of Rebel or Scott's off the shelf. I managed just fine, it's just those characteristics were driving me nuts and the color was too light for my taste. I'll stop babbling now.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And, I've needed many pounds of cure over my gardening "career". First problem was trying to seed this time of year in zone 6. Its hard to get cool season grasses to establish when seeding in the spring, especially fairly late (guessing as to your exact whereabout). Although, sometimes you just have to do what you can, like if you just bought the house or just got it built. Follow Dchall's advice. Then this fall read all you can on this forum about when and how to do overseeding and I think you will have much happier results with fall seeding results. It will generally provide a much better payoff on "reward" versus the amount of effort put in. And, like Dchall says, don't let the one set back get you too down. Lawns will do that to you. Oh, and if you want to try to save much of whatever grass you do have come up from the spring seeding, absent alot of rain you will need to water heavily in the hot months. The roots just aren't going to be established enough to keep it going.

"Scott's does not have the label for your grass seed online (404 error), so it's hard to know what you might have." I got a copy of the label and this is what was in the mix that I used: 9.76% Wendy Jean Creeping Red Fescue 9.75% Shademaster III Creeping Red Fescue 8.77% Citation Fore Perennial Ryegrass 8.28% Silver Dollar Perennial Ryegrass 6.34% Gaelic Kentucky Bluegrass 2.92% Abbey Kentucky Bluegrass 2.92% Right Kentucky Bluegrass 50.00% Water Smart Plus Fertilizer Coating 1.00% Inert From Seed .25% Other Crop Seed .01% Weed Seed ------------------------- "1. Why do I have such an ugly color lawn? Is it the seed I used? Could be but it's more likely the fertilizer you forgot to use. You didn't mention that you used any so I'm making an assumption. If you did fertilize, what did you use and when?" You are correct, I did not use any. I listened to the guy at Home Depot (maybe a mistake?) that told me I should not fertilize a new lawn, it could kill the grass coming in. ----------------------- "2. What is the grass that almost feels and looks like hay? Need the label off the Scott's bag to know the Guaranteed Analysis of the seed. That is not completely likely to help because what you probably have is a weed that's giving you that effect. Does that grass ever go to seed? If so, can you let it go to seed and take a picture. Grass is much easier to ID if there's a seed head or flower." I’m not sure to be honest. When I pull a piece out, it comes from the same stem that has 3 or 4 other grass-like blades (that are still green). ----------------------- "3. What, if anything can I do to fix this and make it a nice, green lawn (other than starting over which is last resort)? Fertilize if you have not already done so. This time of year you should not use chemical fertilizers, but you may use all the organic fertilizer your budget allows. Rather than using commercially bagged organic fertilizer, I prefer to use the ingredients of those same fertilizers. You can buy them at any feed store under the name of alfalfa, corn, wheat, soybean meal, etc. It's a little secret that organic fertilizer is made from animal feed. The application rate for any of them is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Again, you can use it any day of the year, or every day of the year, with no fear of hurting the grass. It takes 3 full weeks before you see results with these grain type fertilizers." I can definitely try that. With that, I’m sure I wouldn’t have to worry about my puppy ingesting any of it. If you have been fertilizing, then there is likely a problem with your soil. Send a sample to Logan Labs in Ohio for testing. You are undoubtedly strongly inclined to send your sample to Penn State, but you'll get a lot more test for the money at Logan Labs. To be honest, I wouldn’t have any idea where to send it, but now I have an idea. ----------------------- "*Note - I have small mounds, maybe golfball size that appear and when I knock them over, there are holes about the diameter of a pen or sharpie. I have no idea what is creating these. There are no holes protruding from the "ball" except the one that enters down into the soil. These are likely earth worm mounds. Sometimes they indicate that you have a hard layer of soil under the softer layer of soil. This can happen when you rototill. A much better way to soften your soil is to use any clear shampoo, like baby shampoo, to increase water penetration and soften the soil deeper down." I tilled last year because the yard was probably 4-6 inches too high. When It would rain, the patio would end up under water. I took out about that much dirt, and loosened up the soil even under that, then added topsoil. Baby shampoo wont kill the grass? How would I apply it? How have you been watering (when you water)? How often and how long when you do water? Here is probably my first issue. I planted the grass last October, threw the hay down, then 3 days later got married and went on a honeymoon, so… for the first 2 weeks, it never got watered, then the weather took a down turn and I was only able to start “caring” for it this spring. ----------------------- "How high/low are you mowing the grass?" If asking in inches, I’m not sure, I have not measured, but I have the mower set on the next to last highest setting (almost cutting it as high as possible).

Only suggestions would be to re-consider not using a pre-emergent and that it's not too late to kill those plaintains with some good 'ol Trimec. But to each his own. ;-) Lawn looks really nice. Keep it up!