As you've said these are lighter patches, make sure that it's KB seeding and not Poa Annua. Check the photos that truftoes posted in the thread you linked to. In particular, compare the close up pictures of the seed heads with what you have in your lawn.

KBG will look brown under heat stress. When you say you live in NoCal, where is that exactly? If you tell me you live in Sac'to or the Bay Area, I would argue that you live in north Central Cal. It is kind of important. If you live in Redding or to the north or west, or up in the mountains, that is different, too. Fescue will never fill in anything. Fescue is a bunch type grass that just sits there for practically decades before enlarging the one plant. The idea with planting fescue is to get enough plants that when they grow to their diameter of 1 inch (max) that you have enough plants to become dense. KBG on the other hand will form a dense blanket and fill in anywhere a fescue plant dies. Did they roll the sod down with a water filled roller? If not it is not too late to do that. The sod must have contact with the underlying soil. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the soil underneath. You should be watering 3x per day for about 10 minutes each time, until the roots knit into the underlying soil. Then you can start to deep water. Deep watering means you soak the soil down deep by applying 1 full inch of water all at one time. Then allow the soil to dry out at the surface for about a week (this time of year - and depending on where you are in NoCal). Then water again a full inch. Set your mower to the highest setting or one notch down. Short grass gets much more heat and drought stress than tall grass. In fact you can set it all the way up and go 2 weeks between mowing if you want. Are you going to fertilize with organics or with chemicals? You can have a spectacular lawn back there if you water, mow, and fertilize properly. And if you are doing that, then you will hardly ever need herbicide, insecticide, or fungicide.

Apparently there was a turfgrass trial at Olds College in Alberta for the 1996-2000 trials. See results at link below in first column (AB1). Hopefully that isn't too far from you to be useful. For compact grasses the common recommendation (or at least the one most people seem to go with) is to create a three-way blend of one compact type, one compact "america" type, and one compact "midnight" type. From one of Bestlawn's old posts, here are the grasses of those types: "Compact Type Able 1, Alpine, Apex, Bewitched, Blacksburg, Blackstone, Blueberry, Bravado, Broadway, Chicago II, Diva, Glade, Goldstar, Hallmark, Indigo, Moonbeam, Moonlight, Moon Shadow, Nugget, Princeton (P-105), Prosperity, Ram I, Serene, Skye, Wildwood Compact-Midnight Type Alexa, Arcadia, Award, Awesome, Barrister, Beyond, Blue Velvet, Bluestone, Courtyard, Everest, Everglade, Excursion, Freedom II & III, Ginney, Impact, Liberator, Midnight, Midnight II, Midnight Star, Nu Destiny, NuGlade, Odyssey, Perfection, Quantum Leap, Rhythm, Ridgeline (A00-891), Rugby II, Total Eclipse, Tsunami Compact-America Type America, Apollo, Argos, Arrow, Bedazzled, Blackberry, Blue Night, Bordeaux, Boutique (changed to "Other" type), Brilliant, Casablanca, Delight, Dynamo, Glenmont, Kingfisher, Langara, Mallard, Mercury, Mystere, Royale, SR2284, Showcase, Sonoma, Unique" I would probably pick out the three highest rated grasses of each type that you find in that NTEP chart, then see if you can find more information on them (particularly color and leaf width) by googling them. Just glancing at the NTEP results I think you will be able to do much better than the "alpine" kbg - it appears that either the Alberta turfgrass analysts are easy graders or Alberta is one fine place to grow KBG! Please do post back with any questions, especially after you've had a look at those NTEP results. You might even find more specific results for the Alberta trials by googling "site:www.ntep.org ab1" Good luck! Paul Here is a link that might be useful: Alberta is column

Hi Chuck, In addition to the regular prepackaged grass seed, Paulino's carries several different mixes in bulk so you can get exactly what you want. I think they're one of your best bets. Give them a call at 303.429.0817. You could also try Timberline Gardens at 303.237.4709. Hope this helps, Skybird