I can't agree, depending on what it is you're asking...... All of my friends, above, have recommended KBG, because you have insisted that you want a lawn. You don't. A lawn is something (for the purposes of this discussion) that one of the ladies of the church might walk on, if she steps off of the sidewalk, on her way to the front door. Oh, my! You want something else entirely. You want something that will withstand kids. Thank you for not saying 'active kids', because if it were active kids, geeze, it would be an even worse situation. Then you mention a dog. That makes it worse. Actually, you mention 'dogs', plural, which makes it even worse than that. Thank you, for not saying 'and by the way, the kids interact with the dogs', because then you'd have about the worst situation possible. Unless you were to add "and after that, the dogs interact with the kids, and then the kids do their best to get even, and before you know it, everybody's chasing each other, and things can get a little crazy around here...." Geeze, thanks for not adding all of that. You are going to want to look up 'athletic field', or look up 'golf course', but you are surely not going to want to look up 'lawn'. (Church lady. Steps off of sidewalk. Forget it). When a two hundred pound guy grabs another two hundred pound guy, and drags him around in the dirt, on Sundays, in front of a crowd, and somebody applauds, and all these guys are running up and down the field, and they're knocking each other over, it's a little tough on the groundskeeper, and he's got to get it all repaired, by six days from today. Or a golf course, where these guys are swiping those clubs, and a little patch (called a 'divot' gets whooshed out of there, and there's a bare spot, two hundred times a day, and the groundskeeper has to make that bare spot repair itself, quickly, it's a little difficult. But one can change the line of approach to the fairway, and while the left side is repairing, we'll all play on the right side. But yes, it's a little difficult, to make it work. Those patches of grass (on both 'athletic fields' and 'golf courses'), difficult as they are, can repair themselves, because those patches get a little rest. A little break. A little down time. But not your place, babe. Nope. Is it three dogs and two kids, or is it three kids, and two dogs? No down time. No rest. Your magic word for today is "fertilizer". You might toss in 'water'. But the point is, you can't just add KBG to the yard, and figure you've got it knocked. You don't, and never will. KBG will repair itself, grow, spread out, rejuvenate, if it has a lot of fertilizer, and that does not mean a little bit of fertilizer. You could go over there, and ask the athletic field guys, or ask the golf course guys, for advice, but after you say 'three dogs and two kids', they're liable to be asking YOU for advice. Your place will have much more wear and tear than theirs will. They will be very interested in how you solve your problems, and theirs will be rather small, in comparison. You get the point: after some wear, the lawn needs the gumption to recuperate. It needs to have the energy, the FERTILIZER, to make that happen, and happen quickly, because more wear and tear is going to happen, coming right up, thank you, and even MORE is going to happen, right after that. So yes, you need KBG: it will repair itself, it will spread out, it's durable. But you need even more, FERTILIZER, to keep all of that happening, non-stop. Just like a sod farm: those guys take bare ground, every year, and from seed manage to fertilize, and the shoots grow into a dark green carpet of healthy lawn. It's the fertilizer, it's not the choice of seed. Lots of fertilizer. Light doses, fairly frequently applied. Grow, baby, grow. Non stop. You need three parts fertilizer, to one part Kentucky Blue Grass. Maybe four parts fertilizer, to one part Kentucky Blue Grass. Keep it growing, non stop, because that patch of ground is not going to get any rest. And go ahead, go over there to the golf course....you can say, with admiration, 'two hundred golfers, with a thousand spectators, and a week later, it looks this good?'.....I got news for you: that guy is going to look at you, with admiration, and he's going to say "Did you say three dogs, and two kids, or did you say three kids, and two dogs?" Good luck with it.

I'm horrible id'ing grassy weeds. Looks like grass to me unless it has a flower or seed stalk. We know it's a "bunch" grass, as opposed to a sod forming grass like bermuda. You should be able to dig it out and get all the roots. If you have a lot of it, you might spray but the overspray will kill the surrounding grass you want to keep. I'm glad you're not going to seed this spring. With that in mind you should be doing the right thing with the lawn over the summer. You'll be surprised how nice it can look when you take proper care. Here's what you should be doing... Water deep (1 inch all at one time) and infrequently (no more than once a week when the temps get above 90. With temps in the 80s you should be watering once every 2 weeks. Remember it's deep watering every time. Measure how long it takes your sprinkler to fill some cat food or tuna cans placed around the yard. That's how long you should water. My sprinkler in San Antonio takes 8 full hours to get an inch. Once you are on this watering program watch the grass to see if you can get away with using less water, but don't go to more frequent watering. Frequent watering encourages weeds and short roots. You want no weeds and deep roots. Also start mowing at your mower's highest setting if you are not already. And here's what I would do in addition. I would start using organic fertilizer. Organic is good because, among other reasons, you don't have to worry about over application. Most of us organilawn nuts use grain type feed from the local feed store to save money. For example a 30-pound bag of commercially branded fertilizer might cost $30. Whereas a 50-pound bag of ground up grains (soybean, corn, cottonseed, alfalfa, etc.) costs anywhere from $8 to $15 depending on where you live. The application rate is the same for either one at 15-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. With the grain fertilizers you cannot overdo them. You could accidentally apply 40 per 1,000 and not have a problem with the grass. You might have a problem with your nose as this stuff can get a little whiffy as it decays on the ground. The aroma is like the smell of sour milk, but not nearly that strong. You'll notice something, but you notice something with chemical fertilizer, too. But with the benefit of 'no fear' and the rest of the soil health benefits of organics, I would recommend you do that too. Start the first of May. You can apply monthly to improve your soil up until August when you do your seeding. You can apply rain or shine, again with no fear of hurting anything. If it rains right after you apply you don't have to worry about reapplying if you want to. You can or not. You're going to do it again in a month anyway. This should help everything about your lawn. Then after you seed, you can go to chemical ferts or stay with organic about 6 weeks later and again after Halloween. We have plenty of time to discuss this more if you like. Also there are other opinions on the forum besides mine.

I overseeded with Titan RX TTTF and did the normal water routine: 1. multiple daily mistings until germination period is over; l 2. early morning watering daily for 15 minutes per zone for a week; l 3. early morning for 15 min every other day for a week; 4. early morning watering for 30 minutes every 3 days for a week; 5. early morning watering for 45-60 minutes once per week Around number 5, I started noticing winter annuals like chickweed. I've stopped watering and decided to let Mother Nature handle things. I will return to #5 for the first few weeks of spring but then I plan on watering only when the lawn shows signs of drought stress.

I think the only folks who benefit from doing it the way we did are the companies that sell & rent us stuff or that come in to take over once we are exhausted and/or overwhelmed. +1 I like to think we have a low hassle approach to lawn care on this forum. If you ask questions first we can really minimize cost and effort over what most novices think they should do. I have to admit that I was in y'all's camp prior to 2002. I thought I knew about lawn care, but I was wrong on almost everything. I tell people I had to unlearn 90% of what I thought I knew. Looking back it might be closer to 100%. I knew about watering, mowing, and fertilizer, but not how to do any of those correctly. I thought fertilizer was the most important aspect of lawn care and that it was a delicate process to keep from burning the lawn. It turns out watering is the most important. I had it backwards. If you deep water and mow high, you will need a lot less fertilizer. And if you use the organic grain type fertilizers I discovered in the early 2000s, then there's nothing delicate about it. You can overdose by 5x and not have a lawn problem. Rototilling is THE big momma of all mistakes. Leveling the resulting bumpy surface is the hardest thing to do. It can be done, but it's a lot of work. Basically you wait until it stops getting bumpier, fertilize and water, scalp it really low, rake off all the grass, spread sand, drag the sand level to fill the holes, and finally water. It can take a day or a weekend. Spreading sand and dragging it level are the hard parts. Sand fills the holes and does not settle further, so it's fairly permanent. Dragging, to me, is the most satisfying part. Of the people here who have done it, they report wild success with this process. Some of them turn into leveling fanatics. Some have done it twice to make the perfect putting green surface.