Pennington Smart Seed Sun and Shade Mix North Grass Seed, 20 lb

Takes a couple weeks to start growing, worth the wait

This seed has worked out pretty well. And the price for a 20lb bag in lovely. I spent the same on a 5lb bag of Scotts and this seed works better!

UPDATE, it took much longer than I thought, but we have lift off. Some areas are very fertile but others took a while to catch up, a long while. The growth is very thin and im not sure how it will blend in with the rest of the lawn, but it did grow so I give it more stars. ORIGINAL REVIEW, I've taken great pains to keep my seed watered adequately. I followed the directions to a t. I even used fertilizer. I've got nothing but empty patches of dirt. I am on a limited income so I can't just buy more.

This is excellent seed. I've grown entire lawns with Pennington seed and it's great quality. I used this small bag to repair a fairly large brown spot caused by a clogged sprinkler head when I was away. The thing to realize is that growing grass from seed is not easy - you have to do it right or nothing will happen. Seed alone is seldom enough. Start your patch by breaking up the top 2"-3" of soil. Don't go deeper. If you have clay soil, you need to mix in gypsum according to the directions on the gypsum bag. Then you have to mix in compost, also per directions on the bag. A bit extra compost is better than not enough. Then you add the seed; work it into the soil so it doesn't show, but not deeper than 1" to 2" inches. Birds will eat seed on the surface; plant it too deep and the grass will die before it can reach the surface. This seed has a starter fertilizer coating, so you don't have to add any fertilizer, and should not. Too much will hurt, not help. Then you have to keep the soil moist for a couple of weeks. This means brief sprinkers 3 to 5 times per day. Don't flood it and don't soak it in the evening or you may encourage fungus growth overnight, and you don't want that. The objective is to not let the dirt completely dry out. When you see a little water pooling on the dirt, that's about enough. Put flags or a barrier of some type - someone walking on new grass will kill it. You'll see fine little stalks of new grass in 10 days to 2 weeks. It will be spotty, but will fill in. Keep it moist for another 7-10 days or until the patch is pretty well covered with new grass. Finally, you will have to get down on your knees and pull the weeds. Unfortunately, most compost has weed seeds in it. You have to pull them by hand, including the roots - don't even think about chemicals. Do this and you'll have success. Shortcuts will usually cause failure.

This is the second time I ordered this grass seed. I noticed this second time the seeds are not as well coated in the feetilizer as before; a lot of the fertilizer is just blue dust in the bag that flows around when you spread the seeds. Another thing you might want to remember that for 32 bucks a 7lb bag this grass is seriously too expensive. If you buy Kentucky blue grass that has seeds thar are at least 4 times smaller for 60 bucks, you will be paying way less for virtually the same end result of having a great grass. And the bluegrass also has a tendency to aggressively spread out naturally. Another issue with this product is that this is a mix of sun and shade varieties, but the package does not tell how much of seeds in the bag are preferring shade and how much are preferring the sun. I'd quite frankly recommend buying shade varieties and sun preferring ones separately. Otherwise, you are diminishing the chances of having good grass coverage everywhere you want. Please don't interprete this review as necessarily negative. You might as well have a variety of grasses growing on your lawn rather than a monoculture. Buy some large seed varieties like this one, then small seed varieties such as bluegrass or zoisia, and see which ones eventually grow better on your lawn. Insted of growing what you want, grow what is growing best, and for that you would want to experiment a bit... or hire a specialist who would do the work for you but for a much higher price.

I have planted grass seed quite a few times and this is by far the worst grass seed that I’ve ever used. I prepped the area, watered, laid down the seed, tapped seed down, and layed straw on top. Watered twice a day and not a single blade of grass grew! I’ve never had that happen before. So I went to a local farm store and bought a different bag of seed and redid the entire process and I now have tiny blades of grass in the entire area. I do not recommend this brand. Waste of $30!

Good seed came up quickly but I neglected to use the starter fertilizer with crabgrass herbicide and it did have a lot of crabgrass but I have since gotten it under control.

I was hesitant because this is so little actual seed and the fertilizer part makes it seem like more, but this seed has done amazing! I planted it with no prep April 25 and forgot about it. Some of the area was a little lower lying so water settles there but we had little rain in the past weeks and as I mowed June 12, wow, I see not only did it fill in the whole area where it was cast, but it actually was enough growth to go ahead and run the mower over the area. The color is a slightly lighter green, in keeping with the main yard. The KY fescue usually shows up kind of dark green/blue. I scattered the leftover out back in shade and I see it's popping up well there too.

Bought 1 bag, used to fill patches on lawn, weather mild/warm, well watered daily, after 3 weeks, seeds still visible, but zero germination. Second bag has had less time, but also no sign of anything happening.

Wort it. Grass looks amazing

Never germinated!!