Midnight Kentucky Bluegrass Seed

Beautiful grass, but it took forever to germinate; difficult to grow. Once it was growing, it was lovely.

I bought this brand of seed this time last year. If there is any question or concern about the quality of this seed, I will tell you the absolute truth as I experienced it. If you, in fact, want dark green Kentucky Bluegrass, OutSidePride Midnight is a serious product. Grass, in general, are organic like humans. It need nutrients, water, sun, and grooming. From the very beginning, I did my research on Youtube.com for the best available information and realized in general, weeds love acidic soil and grass love alkaline soil. My recommendation is to get a professional soil test done first. After that, expect to do a little work for your green lawn. I did a total of about 10 - 15 hours of actual hands-on work. It worked out to be nearly 30 minutes per week. If you cannot manage something like that, I would suggest re-sodding your lawn and forget the seeding. I had many weeds in my lawn and my soil test confirmed a very high acidic lawn. So the first things was to lime the heck out of my soil. Lime (potassium) creates dark green blades of grass. I used a retail lawn care service to handle it. They also applied weed killing and fertilizer treatments. I did not allow them to apply seeding, because they did not have bluegrass. So treat your soil and kill your weeds. Next, dethatch and aerate your lawn in that order. Loosen the matte and then put holes in the ground. Some say leave the plugs that are made, but remove them- open up your lawn. Use a contractor or do it yourself. I had them both done twice in one month. After each process, I applied seed; making sure I tried to place seeds inside the holes. I both watered and timed my processes in front of expected rain. Here is the kicker, I personally applied this Midnight Bluegrass seed by hand. I did not use an applicator. I do believe the term is called "Over-Seeding". I may have taken it quite literally, because each time I applied seeds by hand, it almost looked like snow on the ground, minus the color. I probably used 40 lbs - 50 lbs of seed in a 350 square feet of area. What I was going for was treating soil, opening up the lawn, kill all weeds (declare War on them, because they are persistent), and seed an area in the morning going to work and another area in the evening- took me 2 - 3 minutes each time. The thicker you apply the seed, the more the weeds will not return; they get crowded out. The grass takes over. I had the greenest grass during the winter months. I was pleasantly surprised that my grass stayed green at freezing temperatures. The next Spring season, just before the rains, the weeds started back, but I had contractors apply weed killer early. They said they did not want to do it so son, but they wanted to get paid, so they did what I asked- applied it early and often (every two weeks). When the rains started, EVERYBODY, who was in eye-shot of my lawn, made an comment about how green and thick my lawn was, compared to most others in the neighborhood. I cut it once a week, because it really grows fast and tall, especially now in April/ May 2016. In the attached photo, you will see 2 - 1/2 lawn bags of fresh clippings. It was 2 weeks since the last cut. For the first time this 2016 Spring season, I just applied another layer of seed, but this time, I loosely laid $1.50 per 10 lb bag of Top Soil- I paid $6.00 and covered seeded bald spots and placed that still had a bit of previous different seed type/s. It rained 3 hours later; yep, I timed it, so now the new seed and TopSoil is quickly settling. The photos do not include the recent TopSoil application. If you look carefully, you can see my neighbor's lawns. Their lawn is still looking like hay. I hope my experience helps!

I was eager to try after reading reviews. I pulled up and turned a 61x16 back yard which was a lot of work. I rented a small tiller after putting down peat. I used starter fertilizer to ensure seeds came up and i covered with a mulch made for grass seed. It sprouted in some sections after about 4 days which reviewers said Midnight would take about 3 weeks. We are now into 3 and 1/2 weeks. It is a disaster. Even though i am still hopeful the remainder of the grass will come in only a fourth of the seeds sprouted and are growing. I could deal with this and even that the rest do not sprout even though we have watered every day and it is a rainy season here in Chicago. The horrible thing is that even though there is grass on a small part of yard, my yard is dotted with these plants that look like they might be weeds. Most of the plants have long thin leaves that could also be a flower. So not much grass but about one third of the yard has at least two inches of weeds. I have pulled out the ones I can reach but since I am still hopeful that grass will grow I cannot walk on ground to pull them out and there are very many. When I think of all the work I have gone through and still need to do to pull out all those plants and probably have to reseed. I will NEVER buy anything like seeds or plants from Amazon again. I certainly will not buy from this seller. I thought this would be much better because of reviews and the type of grass but I would have been much better off buying a brand at the local store with a higher percentage of filler. I would have had a better lawn and a lot less weeds or plants or whatever they are to get rid of.

Edit 2023: This is still not as resistant to pet urine as my Zoysia, but I'm trying another 500 sq. ft. test patch and I "think" it's growing OK. I did absolutely no prep work so I can't really blame the see for that. I mowed down to 1 inch, then went over the area multiple times with a SunJoe Dethatcher (love the SunJoe products). This removed a great deal of the weeds and lawn type debris from the area. I rake this up and then spread a random amount of this seed over the prepped area. I did this on April 3rd, and it is now June 21st. I did not use any starter fertilizer or anything, but once the seeds started showing a little blade growth, I sprayed a foliar application of 30-10-10, but at a low overall strength. This helped, and also helped the weeds, but I needed the weeds alive because the two dogs hit this area hard as they go down the deck and turn to the rest of the yard. So, I need the weed root system to maintain the soil structure or that part of the lawn would have been a muddy mess. I do see where a few totally bare spots have filled in well, and I'm seeing bits of this KBG throughout the weeds which is a positive thing. Later this summer I'll spray a section a little bit away from the bottom of the deck and see how much of the KBG is there and hopefully this grass will have enough established growth to fill in the gaps where the weeds were. I've got an automatic water timer on this running every day for about 3 minutes at a time a few days a week, but now that the KBG is established, I'm watering about 15 minutes every other day to encourage the roots to grow deeper as they chase the water deeper and deeper. I will test and see which works better for me. The KBG or the Zoysia. Cool season grasses have more moisture in the blades as well as more chlorophyll, which is why cool season grasses stick to the mower deck and warm season grasses (at least Zoysia) do not. I think this can make a great lawn, although I'm not sure yet how it will hold up to pets and traffic. Original review: If you do not have pets, this will likely make a gorgeous lawn, but nowhere in the ad does it mention that this is a horrible product for pet urine, which is an intentional oversite meant to get your money. Time to break out the Round Up and kill this grass and start all over. I guess this was just a donation to Outsidepride and I tip my had to their deceitful advertising. Well, in this case, I'm biting back. My back lawn is 10,000 sq. feet and my dogs are 50 and 62 pounds per the vet visit last week. I have kept this area blocked from the porch and forced the dogs to go off the opposite side of the deck. I've watched the dogs and they urinate all over the lawn and not just in this 500 sq. ft. test patch I planted. A few times they end up in this test patch and there are multiple dead spots where they dogs have urinated once or twice. The Zoysia I have in my front lawn has dogs urinate in it all the time as people walk their dogs and I've never had a single issue with pet urine in my Zoysia lawn, so next year I'll put Zoysia in my back lawn too. I live in the transition zone so I was hoping a cool season grass that would stay green in the winter would help reduce mud spots, but with as thick as the Zoysia is in my front yard, the dogs won't hurt it at all. I would NOT recommend this grass for anybody that has pets or thinks they may have pets in the future. If you have no pets and do not see yourself having pets, check the amount or number of hours you have direct sunlight and make sure you meet the minimum required amount of direct sunlight, ensure adequate watering and fertilizer, and this will make a pretty lawn with a gorgeous deep green color. If not for the dead spots, this would be a pretty yard, although I do not think it would tolerate heavy or even moderate traffic before having problems. I'd suggest doing the work to level the lawn so you will not scalp mowing low, and because this has such a fine blade of grass, it should decay and break down quickly if you mulch your lawn. On the down side, my Zoysia lawn grows so thick it is like walking on a carpet when you are barefoot walking on the lawn. It's amazing. Zoysia spreads via rhizomes and stolons and that makes for a great lawn that will fill in spaces as you kill off weeds and undesirable turf and as you do, Zoysia will fill in. This KBG spreads via rhizomes only, and I asked the rep via e-mail if this would spread and fill in and if I could transplant plugs from established areas to help fill in other areas and she did not recommend this. So either it does not spread well as other grasses, or the rep was simply telling me a lie trying to get me to buy even more seed. After multiple contacts with the rep, I didn't get a warm and fuzzy feeling. she came off as snotty and as if I was bothering her with my questions. With that said though, with the right temperature conditions and proper weed control, and low foot traffic, this would make a gorgeous lawn. If I did not have pets, I may consider this grass for the great color, but it is so thin and weak that it offers no support when you walk across it like my Zoysia does. My 10 YO daughter plays in both the front yard where the Zoysia is located, and the back yard where this KBG-Midnight is located and she has told me she would rather me put Zoysia in the back too. I've seen my daughter making grass angels (snow angels, just in the Zoysia instead of snow) many times, and she vastly prefers the feel of the Zoysia when running and playing. Since she is a wild heathen child who never wears shoes (even in the sub 30 degree winter weather running around outside unless we force her to wear shoes), that is saying a lot. As fine as this KBG blade is, you would feel every imperfection in the soil as you walk across it. Once I opened the other side of the deck to allow the dogs to go down the steps to the lawn where the KIBG is located, it was not long at all before their normal traffic going in and out wore a bare patch in the KBG, so it did not tolerate the dog foot traffic well at all. Don't run out and buy Zoysia based off my review above. KBG is a cool season grass and grows well up north, and does well enough in the transition zone depending on location. The further south you go, the chance you run of a cool season grass going dormant in the hottest part of the summer unless you irrigate well and maybe add some sea kelp or other product to manage your turn. Zoysia is a warm season grass and if you are in the northern portion of the transition zone or in northern states, the growing months for Zoysia will be short. Zoysia thrives best in 85-100 degree weather, but once you are hitting the highs around 80 or below, Zoysia stays green, but grows and spreads really slow.

Wow! The new coating helps a lot with germination. Three years ago I used another brand of Midnight when I completely restored my entire lawn and didn't have great germination. I tried this brand and had better luck. This year, I over-seeded bare spots after having to repair many areas due to sewer and downspout repairs in my yard. I ended up over-seeding the entire lawn in late August. The coating helps a lot! Yes, many complain the coating reduces the amount of seed you actually get, but I prefer the coated seeds, like the name brand expensive bluegrass seed that's coated seed for years now. I get better results with coated seed. Protects seed viability? Who knows. Yes it costs more, but the end results are what matters. Furthermore, many folks forget to use starter fertilizer. They forget to continue to use starter after the seed is slowly growing too. I do NOT! It's a must! I like to use the name brand starter in bare spots because it is finer and dissipates better in the ground, especially when only keeping seed moist. When over-seeding my established lawn, I use whatever, but still prefer the finer granular name brand starter fertilizer. Also keeping the seed moist and cooled off during high heat is a must too. We are in a moderate drought where I live in Ohio, but I've been watering. Many neighbors are shocked at my lawn and are asking me what to do now that it's fall. I told them what I do and the products I use. I've had 2 delivery gentleman ask me what I'm using after dropping off my packages. I'm mowing 2x per week, while most are still not mowing at all and haven't mowed in weeks. I highly recommend this product! This seed does take a bit to establish, like most bluegrass seed, so patience and dedication to the future is required. If over-seeding late fall/winter, I recommend not broadcasting crabgrass prevention until the last moment possible in spring. This seed has overwintered well for me here in Ohio. It's a gorgeous dark green color that's fairly disease resistant and drought tolerant considering bluegrass seed.

Picked up a bag of this KBG to mix in with a seed blend along with OPs Firecracker and Hat trick, SPF-30, and a bag of Barenburgs Pebble Beach PRG blend and have had great results so far. You can 💯 differentiate this vs the others, very dark green, looks phenomenal. Germination rate seemed to be around the advertised rate, usually between 7 and 14 days. OP definitely offers good value, you're getting a premium seed at a relatively low price (vs other premium seed), will continue using their seed. Picture of grass is from early April in the Northeast, considering the weather this year, their grass is looking good.

worked in some places in my yard, not others. The idea of my best to make sure I follow the directions. And there’s one area in my yard where grass just won’t grow.

Great except FedX broke the bag and seed was pouring out Grass is great using it for years. Easy to use with bag spreading seeds. Great quality. Easy to spread . Lots of rain and cool this year grass looks great. .