If your yard is very sparse, go ahead and plant at the "new lawn" rate. Do not try to put down 2 times more than that thinking that you will get a lawn twice as fast. It doesn't work that way.

I have about 50% more seed for my lawn that I need. I was extremely anal and measured my lawn super precise so I can be accurate with future seeding and feed applications.

What I am curious about is when the numbers say 90% germination, I assume I will actually get less than what the tests show as they are under ideal conditions.

I realize I won't get faster growth with more seed, but I want to try and build a thick lawn. I'm curious as to people's experience with "super-seeding" when starting from scratch and if they got better results or did they end up with a other unforseen problems.

I'm trying to get this right the first time.

I don't remember the exact germination rate listed on mine, but I used an equal mix of Midnight, Moonlight, and Brilliant starting from scratch. I would imagine it is very close to your 90%. I seeded at 4#'s per 1000 and after 2 seasons have an extremely thick lawn. You have to be very patient with KBG and fertilized very heavily for at least the 1st year. I just did 4#'s of N the 1st year and then read here that it probably needs 5-6.

From my experience, after I established a nice lawn (in NC anyway) for several years, I've been re-seeding every fall with a different variety, but the same type of turf grass. Blending varieties of the same type of grass gives me a better chance of keeping a nice lawn against the stresses of heat, drought, insects, etc.

I only reseed at the reseeding rate now because there's always some loss over summer from heat/drought, but soon I'll only reseed when I see grass thinning instead of reseeding just because it's fall.

When seeding, you don't try to correct for the rate of germination. Follow the seeding rate on the bag. There are many reasons the rate was suggested, and that includes they already did the corrections. Good luck.

I was hoping one of the KBG experts would chime in, but if your lawn is shady, like you say in the other thread, it may not make much difference how much you put down. Might depend on your cultivars.

My advice, and I've seeded a lot of KBG and other mixes, is this: don't put too much down.

It's tough to tell when that is, but I'll try to give you a guideline or two:

1. Go get your toothbrush, and set it on the windowsill, with the bristles sticking upward. Imagine that that's your grass, three weeks after seeding. If your seed comes up that dense, every last grass plant will die, except for the ones on the outside edge, about fifty of them, that can actually get some sunlight. The rest will die. No sun. Too closely packed together. Too much seed got put down, too close together. You even got germination, eh? Too bad. They'll all die, except for the ones that are able to get some sun. So in this example, that's TOO CLOSE TOGETHER, or too much seed in one place.

That's obviously one extreme. Let's go to the other extreme.

If you plant just a handful of seed, to where the ground is barely speckled with some seed, but you can see all the dirt, with a few white flecks (the grass seed), it's too thin. Each plant will likely come up, and be healthy. But you'll have bare spots, even after the grass sprouts, and the fact that KBG spreads out (over a year) won't make up for the fact that you've got a thin lawn there, and could have done better. That's the other extreme.

Here's how to find the middle, that successful middle ground. Keep in mind that this is an APPROACH, a way to get started. Bestlawn's advice, just above, is correct: if the seed maker wants 5lbs of seed to cover about 2000 sq feet, you should measure out 2000 sq ft, and decide that that package will be fully used, in that staked out area.

But here's how to get started. You, or somebody in your family, enjoys fried eggs. More than that, you or they enjoy pepper on those eggs. Not scrambled, but fried, over easy. When you put pepper on those eggs, you don't DUMP the pepper, you sprinkle it, moving the pepper shaker, so that a nice, evenly distributed amount of pepper is all over the eggs. You look at it. If there isn't enough pepper, you sprinkle it again, very evenly, perhaps even more lightly, but you're adding more pepper, and when you're done (with that application), you'll look at it. Again. If you moved too fast, you'll even more lightly sprinkle the pepper, evenly, and then you'll look at those eggs, until the pepper is JUST RIGHT, as Goldilocks said.

Here's the deal. Don't tell me you don't like pepper on eggs. Somebody does, in your family, or circle of friends. Fix the eggs. I want you to, with the pepper eater at your side, lightly, lightly, sprinkle the pepper on those eggs, evenly, to the VERY POINT, that the pepper eater says "NO. No. That's too much, and I'm not eating those eggs. I could have lived with it, last time, but this last bit you put on there, hey, it's just too much, and I wouldn't eat the eggs. I'm not going to do it. Gimme some new eggs, or take these away."

That's it. Take a very good look at those eggs. With evenly distributed black spots, the pepper, and now imagine that that's your dirt, with a bunch of evenly distributed white spots (your KBG seed), at about the same density. Nicely, evenly spaced, but you're only going to apply it up to a certain point. That's it. YOu're there. You're done. Move along, and seed somewhere else.

"Follow the seeding rate on the bag. There are many reasons the rate was suggested, and that includes they already did the corrections."

Right on, bestlawn. If you seed too much, it can cause damping off of your emerging seedlings and can develop even before your seedlings emerge.

nc_lawn_nut, follow the rate on the bag and you will know you are not working against yourself and you will get it right the first time.