A lawn master named morpheuspa is caring for two lawns - his and his mother's. His is all improved Elite cultivars. His mother's is contractor grade. The mother's lawn is gorgeous due to his care. I believe he has demonstrated that even contractor grade Kentucky bluegrass can be the best lawn on the block if you get the soil tuned up and follow proper care. In fact here is a pic of his mother's lawn... If you want the best lawn in the neighborhood, then the Logan Labs soil test is necessary. New seed may not be necessary. I would see what you can accomplish this summer and, about mid-August, decide whether you need different grass. Renovating is a lot of work followed by a lot of stress waiting for the seed to come in. Then you are faced with a 3-year wait as the grass plants mature. If you already have mature grass, I would just make the very best of it first before jumping into the pool of renovation. But also necessary is mastering the basics of lawn care as follows... Basics of Lawn Care After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct. Watering Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an inch in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds. You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in Las Vegas your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week. Mowing Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush. Fertilizing Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it. Too little is better than too much. At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide. It is too late to fertilize with chemical fertilizers this summer; however, you can still fertilize with organics all summer long. You can start with organics before you get your soil test back - you will always have a nitrogen deficiency. Between the basic lawn care (water and mowing), organic ferts, and the corrections to micro nutrients prescribed by the soil test, your lawn should look amazing by August. You can introduce yourself to organic lawn care by applying alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. No, you won't be overrun by rabbits. They only eat rabbit food when confined and fed nothing else. Get the alfalfa pellets at any feed store. Check prices between rabbit chow and alfalfa pellets. They are the same product but sometimes there is a difference from brown bag to brown bag. Spray the soap and molasses and you are officially on your way.

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!

Hogans sells a lot of excellent TTTF cultivars. Be sure to ask for Sod quality seed (might be a bit more expensive) to guarantee it to be weed and crop free. Check out the NTEP results for various TTTF cultivars to see what grows best in your area. I'd suggest a mix of 3-4 cultivars to cover your bases. Make sure 1-2 are excellent shade performers and try to find ones that are disease and brown patch resistant. Off the top of my head, some of the good cultivars to look into are Bullseye, Cochise IV, LS1200, Faith, etc. You might have trouble sourcing them at the moment since a lot of the seed suppliers are expecting new stock to only come in sometime in September. For the seeding, ensuring good seed to soil contact is key. As dchall mentioned, you risk awakening long dormant weed seeds from below the soil surface. However, that being said, many people swear by it because it still gives better results than just broadcast spreading seed due to the improved seed soil contact (especially if you use a dragmat or rake to break down the aerated plugs. The recommended approach would be to scalp down the lawn as low as possible. You could use a dethatcher/power rake if needed to thin out the grass a bit and remove any excess thatch (again, slightly larger chance of awakening weed seeds, but nothing as bad as aerating as long as the tines don't penetrate deep into the soil). Rake up or use a mower with a bagger to collect all the thatch and grass you pull up with the dethatching. Broadcast your seed using a broadcast or drop spreader. For TTTF, you want to overseed at approximately 4.5lbs/1000 sq ft. If you do a full renovation, then you would seed at around 9lbs/1000sqft. Don't try to dump all the seed down in one pass. Set the spreader to a low setting and make a few passes along the area till you run out of seed. This will help with a more uniform seed distribution. If you have the budget and the patience/manpower to topdress your overseeded lawn, then topdress with a thin layer of compost or compost-peat moss mixture. Otherwise, skip that step and rent a roller and use it to roll the seed into the soil. A combination of the scalped lawn and the rolling helps get the seed down to the soil and to make good contact with it. The topdressing is very beneficial in helping retain moisture during germination. You could also look into products like Penn mulch or Soil Moist seed coat to help in regards to keeping the seeds moist after seeding. If you don't have access to a roller or can't find one to rent, you could do what I did, and use your riding mower (if you have one) to drive around the yard and press the seed in. Takes a lot longer to do, but it does work in a pinch. Also, I'd second the advice above about not waiting till October. Very little of what germinates will likely survive winter. With the cooler than usual temperatures this August, many have already put down seed or are putting down seed in the next couple of weeks. I wouldn't aim for any later than the 1st week of September. The warmer soil temps should help with faster germination.

"Without cover, how often should I water the seeds after slit seeding?" try watering fairly heavily the first time to make sure everything is wet, not saturated. From there just water lightly 3 times a day, maybe 10 minutes each time. 9am, noon, and 2:30 pm is what I am at now. Just make sure the soil is all damp. ""Do I have to be sure I've waited a certain amount of time after RUing the weeds and unsightly grasses before slit seeding?" Yes, read the RU label. I think is 10 days or something. "The slit seeder at Lowe's has the hopper on the front that looks like a drop spreader built in, The Classen I believe. Elsewhere on this forum I've read of people not being particularly fond of the hopper and just broadcasted the seed with their own spreader and then used the slit seeder w/out the seed in the hopper to work in the seed. Does that make sense?" It sounds like it makes sense, but I'll tell you what happened to me. The darn slit seeder hopper just dumped seed all over the place. So I did what you mentioned, then ran the slit seeder over that...bad bad bad. horrible germination rate. Maybe it was me and I did it wrong or maybe my soil was not good for germination. I did a soil test the next spring and had to add a lot of amendments. Just my experience, thats all.