Bethlehem PA here. I used the Mag 3 to excellent success, but listen to Bestlawn...she knows what of she speaks. Perhaps you could kill just a little section of it, perhaps 2 x 2 or so, and see how that goes? Hopefully that's not too much to experiment with, although it could be a bit unsightly if those trees cause it to fail. But if it works, in fall of 2009, let it rip. I have had a soil test which shows my soild to be lacking in nutients, while PH is on the low side of ideal. It'd be a good idea to spend the spring and summer correcting these issues as they're impacting your existing grass. It could certainly be that your current grass would look wonderful if fed and the pH adjusted--and no other addition is necessary. (Also, mow high and water rarely...we'll all be happy to expand on that if you need more information).

Just a note: we usually don't spend any time talking about what partial sun means, but there is an easy way to chart your yard. Just take a few sheets of paper and weight them down with small stones in various areas of your yard. Once an hour, walk around and mark the ones that are in the sun. By the end of the day, you have a "Sun Map" of your property. Make a sketch of your yard and label the number of hours of sun each section gets. It only takes a day and potentially can save you lots of hours and cash by making sure you are planting things in areas where they will thrive.

Hi Greg, #%@*! My POA is STILL producing seeds, though only in the shade. Then again the lawn over my septic system (in full sun, where there was some POA) recently went dormant and dead-looking with the speed of a funny car thanks to no rain (after all that we were getting...) and a shallowly buried system, and me not paying enough attention. So I'm not sure if the POA that was there is dead, or just dormant like (hopefully) my KBG is. Other than in that area, the KBG blend I used is doing really well! I used Award, Moonlight and Bedazzled. Award is a midnight type just like (obviously) Midnight 2, and very dark. IIRC all four of those cultivars performed well in some or all of the RI, central MA and Westchester (I think?) NY turf trials. I chose Award over Midnight 2 because it is said to do better in shade, and I have some of that on the borders of my property. The midnight types are apparently more susceptible to powdery mildew, which does best in shade, and I have recently read that some people don't use shade tolerant midnight varieties as a way of increasing the shade tolerance of the stand for this reason. That said, I only had a very small handful of plants affected this year so I don't think this is a problem for me. If you are in full sun, I would say go with the midnight 2. If you have some shade, the moonlight should help a lot. If you are paranoid about shade like I was, you could swap the midnight for award. But Mallory knows way more than I do, so you might see what she thinks about that. And IMHO KBG can tolerate more shade than one might expect from reading about it. The one part of that blend that I would consider reducing or replacing, and only for aesthetic appeal, would be the bedazzled. It is recommended mostly for its disease resistance, but it also is the lightest in color of the three. I know that many like the bedazzled because it adds a certain "sheen" to the lawn in the right light. And in the right light the blend really is gorgeous. But IMHO the Bedazzled can be a little much in the (more frequent) wrong light by accentuating mower wheel tracks, especially when the lawn is cut high. I believe the alternative to Bedazzled usually mentioned with similar disease resistance but with a darker color is Boutique, but I never looked up how well that might do here. As an aside, after establishing his legendary front yard, Turf_Toes went on to seed a monostand of Midnight 2. I would imagine that this is part of the reason he did that. But please keep in mind that my lawn is just 11 months old, and I have read that it will deepen in color even more in the second year. So I really don't know what the final result will be. Hope that helps! And please follow up with what you decide, or any other questions of course. Paul

Bill Hill posted helpful details about transitioning kbg into fine fescue. He also stated the fine fescue varieties he planted. I don't know how those same ones perform in your area though. I was hoping A.J. would answer this post because I know diddly about blending fine fescues. I *think* there has to be at least one of each Chewings, Hard, and Creeping Red, but hope he will chime in to correct me if I'm wrong. Here are NTEP ratings for your area. I suggest trying to select the darker varieties to best match the Magnificent 3 blend. Then, you can check this list for where to puchase them. There aren't many fine fescues listed among those retailers, but that doesn't mean they don't sell them, only that I didn't list them. When it comes to blade width, I'm sure you'll find them finer than the bluegrasses, which I wouldn't suggest you worry too much about. It's just the way it is. Check here for leaf texture ratings, but don't confuse or try to compare the numbers to those of kbg. They don't reflect the same at all.