Having a good looking lawn is an awesome reward for the labor it takes!

If you are concerned about the mowing height, you should be able to get the HOA crew to cut it higher. If not, that is the right height for bluegrass, like you mentioned.

You will likely not be able to find any single seed variety. They make the mixtures so that you get the positive traits of different cultivars. For example one might do better with drought, one handles disease better, and one is better looking. When you mix the three of them together, you get the traits of all of them - that's the goal anyways. Biggest thing is get a high quality seed (i.e. 0.0% "other crop").

Don't dig up anything.

If there are areas with no grass that is alive you may need to seed from scratch, otherwise, overseeding should be fine. Starter fertilizer does go down at the time of seeding. And I'm not sure if compost is an organic alternative to synthetic starter fertilizer. Either way, I would recommend a dose of starter fert, even if you do compost.

Call around and find somewhere local that will sell you some good seed.

Hope it all goes well! Pictures would also be nice.

Hey, thanks for the reply!

Thanks for the advice. I was looking again at https://www.seedsuperstore.com/ and found that they have a 'Customizer' in which you can add different varieties/species (https://www.seedsuperstore.com/ordering/Customizer.asp) and it looks also like they have several of the top seed for my area. Would it be ok to do a 20%/20%/20%/20%/20% mix of, say, bewitched, midnight II, solar eclipse, award, and nu destiny? Or would that be overkill and I should just pick three?

Also, it seems that the smallest order I could do there is 10 lbs. My yard isn't very big, and I'm overseeding not new-seeding, so I would only need a couple lbs, I would think. So, how long of a 'shelf-life' does grass seed have? That is, could I order 10 lbs and then overseed 1-2 times a year for the next few years? Or would I be wasting a lot of seed that would die if I don't use it? I haven't found out what shipping will be yet. What exactly should I look for, to call around locally? Nurseries? Also, any recommendations on starter fertilizer?

You mentioned pics, so when I got home from work I snapped a few. Hopefully I'm embedding these correctly:

My entire front yard. They mowed it this morning:
{{gwi:112322}}

Also my front yard, but on the 'community' side of the sidewalk:
{{gwi:112323}}

Front yard again, in the middle of the yard looking straight down:
{{gwi:112324}}

The side of my house. It actually looks 'greener' to me in person:
{{gwi:112325}}

Looking straight down, on the side of my house:
{{gwi:112326}}

Middle of the backyard:
{{gwi:112327}}

The 'hill':
{{gwi:112328}}

Another shot of the 'hill':
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And one more shot of it:
{{gwi:112330}}

And what it looked like when they sodded it originally:
{{gwi:112331}}

I can't seem to find any pics of about a month after I put down the Orgro last year, sadly.

The mix you mentioned look pretty good. I think it would work fine. Three varieties is a little more common, I think. You are probably going to need 20-30lbs of seed. Overseeding rates are typically 4-6lbs per 1000 sq. ft. Measure your lawn and buy accordingly. Seed does go bad. I wouldn't use it if it was older then say 6 months or so (give or take some).

The thing I noticed is that there is just simply bare spots in your yard. Typically weeds are more then happy to fill in the blanks. If it were me, I would recommend core aerating it 3-4 times before seeding or verticut. You can also get compost or peat, and till it into the blank spot - till it in deeply. Do that only if the area looks compacted upon closer investigation.

I have used 13-13-13 as starter fertilizer. You can get a soil sample which will tell you precisely what you need. You can do the soil sample at your local extension office or Logan Labs.

Nurseries may have seed, but also your local Co-op, and if you have any farm type of store.

I think I answered everything. ;-)

Thanks for the advice! Sorry the pics came out so small. Apparently there's no way to edit my post to change that, nor was I allowed to make another post until someone else did! If you view the image itself, and change out the /s144/ to /s1280/ you can see the pic better. For example, the last one:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7bjeTBtWZDU/SJzlX4O3nSI/AAAAAAAABng/o4wLWhthVTs/s144/DSCF2472.JPG

should be

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7bjeTBtWZDU/SJzlX4O3nSI/AAAAAAAABng/o4wLWhthVTs/s1280/DSCF2472.JPG

Here is the front yard again:

{{gwi:112332}}

and here's the backyard 'hill':

{{gwi:112333}}

and here is the side yard which I think looks decent:
{{gwi:112334}}

My lawn is pretty small. I did a quick estimate, and it seems I have about 1600 sq ft. So I guess a 10 lb. bag would be just about perfect?

I don't think I understand what you mean exactly by aerating it 3-4 times; do you mean I shouldn't overseed this fall, and instead aerate a few times then a few more times in the spring, and overseed next fall?

Thanks again for reading my long posts, and the advice! One last question; if I order from seedsuperstore, is there fertilizer (https://www.seedsuperstore.com/Fertilizer/default.asp) a good one? It is $50 for 25 lbs, but is 19-26-6. Or would I be better off with finding what you mentioned locally?

Wow! Big difference with the photos! I agree, this forum lacks some features. Your lawn actually looks really nice, and it looks like it took the summer pretty decent other then the couple of dead spots. Those really shouldn't be a big deal to fix.

Fertilizer from the seed super store is expensive. For your situation, almost anything will do. You could have the soil tested but it doesn't look worth it.

To clarify on the aeration, I would recommend renting an aerator, and running it over the yard 3-4 times before overseeding, especially focusing on the dead areas. Before you do that cut the grass super short at roughly 1"-1.5" and bag it as well (this is part of the overseeding). Let me caution you that those aerators are extremely heavy and awkward. After seeing the larger pictures, don't till the dead patches up, there's enough good grass to save. If you really don't want to do the short mowing and aeration, I think you can probably skip it, and try it without. However, I think you will have best results if you do.

You're right about the small lawn! That's smaller then I thought. 10lbs. would be an ample supply to you and your neighbor. :)

Honestly, after seeing the larger pictures, every picture I see looks like you have fescue. It's too thick bladed for bluegrass. It is a short cut for fescue. Having it cut taller may help the water problems next year.

Your yard looks like it's in pretty good condition. You can make seeding just as complicated or as simple as you please. It doesn't look to me like it needs tons of help to catch back up. If it were me, I would cut it short, aerate (I have an aerator, which makes it easier for me), seed (fescue), fertilize, then water, of course. Should take a morning, or less.

Stick with it!

Tall fescue seems to be really popular in this zone. At walmart, I looked at the grass seed available and all but one was Tall fescue. From the sound of it, you also recommend I stick with fescue? I figured that the KBG would be finer looking, darker green, and recover better. Or would it be odd to switch now? That super seed store also recommends fescue when I do the seed express tool. Its inputs are my zip code and if it's sunny or not. It gave me these two recommendations:

SS1000 : Tall Fescue Blend. This superior quality blend of three of the top tall fescue varieties in the most recent national trials is the finest tall fescue blend available anywhere. Contains 33% each of Cochise IV, 3rd Millennium and Falcon V Tall Fescues.

and

SS5000: This outstanding sunny mixture combines three superior Kentucky Bluegrass varieties with our best fine fescue and perennial ryegrass to produce a lush, dark green lawn. Contains 20% each of Midnight,Bewitched, and Award Kentucky bluegrass, and Zodiac chewings fescue and Amazing GS perennial ryegrass.

The SS5000 sounds interesting - it's 60% KBG, two of the brands of which are really high on the NTEP list, zodiac chewings fescue (which is fine fescue?) and some amazing gs ryegrass. The fescue and ryegrass are also about mid-high on the NTEP listings.

Or would it be stupid to try and switch to primarliy KBG now? I just figured to get the darkest green color, KBG was my best bet (and I prefer the finer look to the wider blade, too). Oh! and do you know of any other online stores for seed for me to check out?

Steer clear of fine fescue. You have a sunny yard - you can have nice looking grass.

Having a mix of fescue and bluegrass can work out well, actually. However, it can be kind of tricky to get to permanently look good because it can start to look a little clumpy. Places like the current dead areas that would have 100% bluegrass might stand out. I wouldn't think there anything wrong with seeding bluegrass - it's up to you to try your hand at it. Overseeding like you plan to, won't change it all out in most of the yard. It would take quite a while to completely change to bluegrass through overseeding.

I really don't know of any other turf seed places online. I get all mine local.

You should overseed with a rate of no more then 4-6 lbs per 1000 sq. ft. If you do more then that rate, you will create too dense a turf, which will ask for fungal diseases and the like. New seeding rate is typically 8-10lbs per 1000 sq. ft.

The bag should say the recommended seeding rate. It may be less then the 4-6 or 8-10, but usually that's what it is for fescue.

I would say that you aerate and over-seed. There are construction equipment rental companies out there that do tool rental companies out there where you can rent mechanical aerators that will make your job easier.