TestDIYOrganic

Days 9, 10 and 11 of my organic lawn renovation project were pretty tough. A lot of raking, digging and incorporating compost. I ran into some snags that made it even more difficult but hopefully it will all be worth it when my new lawn comes in.



I was expecting to have seed down by the 10th day but I ran into a few snags. I had the bright idea to do all the work with manual tools since it was only 600 sq ft that I was renovating but it wound up being more tiring than I expected.  This post is a few days late as a result. My whole body was sore and my fingers were too tired to type. It was a pretty good workout though. :)



The first major step was to kill off as much of the existing lawn as I could using two organic herbicides instead of RoundUP. (See BurnOut II vs Nature's Avenger.) That went pretty well and both killed a large majority of the existing grass and weeds. There was some weedy looking tall fescue that was coming back too fast and I decided to dig it up before I went on to amending the soil, leveling the lawn and seeding. Details discussed below.

Digging Out Tall Fescue

Composted Left/Not Composted Right

Because I was planning on killing and reseeding parts of my lawn last year I didn't take as good care of those areas as I should have. I didn't do anything about the weeds and didn't water regularly. As a result the lawn in one section in particular has gotten very bad and it wasn't great to begin with.



Three sections will be renovated in total. Two are in decent shape but one of the sections requires a bit of regrading and I might as well reseed the other since they're in close proximity and I feel the grass should match.



For the past few weeks I've been gathering all the tools I'll need for a lawn renovation as well as finalizing the supplies and methods I'll be using.



Below you'll find my lawn renovation plan as well as pictures of my existing lawn and description of some of the issues I'm having.

Why Kill The Existing Lawn?

The lawn is old and over the years different types of grass seeds have been used which give the lawn an uneven appearance. Some of the grasses grow very fast while others hardly grow at all and there are a bunch of weeds in one section. There are also sections with depressions as well as bumps that need to be smoothed out. Additionally the soil is a little low in organic matter and the soil structure could use some improvement by adding compost.



It's easier to tackle all the issues by starting fresh with some new grass seed.

The Plan

Day 1

Tomorrow I start killing my existing lawn. I'll be using two different organic herbicides instead of RoundUp/Glyphosate which is normally used in this step. Each of my three sections will be split in half and so that I can compare the effectiveness of each in this process under different conditions.



I'll be using BurnOut II from St Gabriel Organics and Nature's Avenger from Cutting Edge Formulations.



These products work best with full sun and temperatures above 80 degrees. I was going to start today but tomorrow will be even hotter as will the rest of the weekend.

Day2

The weed killers start working within hours. Any areas that I had missed on Day 1 should be apparent and I can spot treat using the appropriate herbicide for that area.

Day 7

Unlike glyphosate based herbicides like RoundUp, these organic alternatives are not systemic and will not kill the roots. They only kill the leaves of the plant but without the leaves the rest of the plant is susceptible. If there is enough stored energy in the roots for some of the weeds and grasses to grow back I will re-spray with herbicide to kill any new growth as suggested by St Gabriel Labs.

Day 8-9

At this point the existing lawn should be sufficiently damaged and if necessary I'll mow the grass at my mower's lowest setting and bag the clippings to remove some of the debris and/or use my Ames True Temper Thatch Rake to both clear plant debris and start cultivating the soil.



Using a combination of tools including rakes and a Garden Weasel Cultivator I'll start incorporating compost into the top of the soil, fertilize using an organic lawn fertilizer,correct grade issues and probably reshape the garden beds.



My soil's pH appears to be fine in those areas but since the organic herbicides I'm using contain acids I'll recheck the pH and add some Fast Acting Lime if necessary.

Day 10

On Day 10 of the process I will put down new grass seed. My initial plan was to plant a good Kentucky Bluegrass mix but I've changed my mind and will be going with a Turf-Type Tall Fescue mix. Unless anything changes I'll be using Jonathan Green Black Beauty grass seed. There might be some better TTTF grass blends out there but there were a number of reasons why I decided to go with Black Beauty. One of the primary ones was that it's something I can find locally. TTTF doesn't spread like KBG does so every 2-4 years it might need to be overseeded if thin or bare spots develop. I decided it would be more convenient to use a seed I could find locally.



After seeding I'll follow an appropriate watering schedule. Depending on the weather the first week I might have to water lightly twice a day to keep the seeds moist for good germination. The second week I can probably cut down to once a day. After that I can slowly increase the watering times and decrease the watering frequency.

Existing Lawn Condition

Section 1

Section 1 is the largest as well as the worst section of the three. The soil structure is very poor, there is a wide mix of grasses including everything from fine fescue to tall fescue. This section is in full sun and gets little to no foot traffic.



Section 1 also has the worst weed problem. Weeds in this portion of the lawn include dutch white clover, wild violet, either purslane or prostrate pigweed, some dandelions, crabgrass, some veronica speedwell, something that looks like nimblewill and possibly goosegrass.



This section of lawn also has some issues with what I believe is red thread or some other type of disease which I've been able to successfully control with corn meal.



It gets little traffic and requires more water than I've been applying, especially this year, which caused the grass to suffer.

Section 2

Section 2 receives partial sun. It is shaded by a large tree for about 1/2 the day. The grass here is more consistent. I've been overseeding here regularly with a Kentucky Bluegrass Mix (Jonathan Green Sod Maker) and it normally looks good. There is a bit of crab grass at the edges but that's about it.

The area needs some serious regrading. Some areas are uneven and if I'm not careful get scalped by the mower.

The grass looks much better than the photo indicates but not as great as it usually because I haven't watered or fertilized as regularly as I normally would because of the renovation.

Section 3

This section was regraded and planted with a fine fescue mix because it receives little sun throughout the day. It has been slightly neglected because of the renovation plan but otherwise looks pretty good. The photo also doesn't look that great because of the mix of sun and shade throwing off the colors and brightness. (See my post on how to take great lawn photos for more info.) As with Section 2, Section 3 looks pretty good and just a little bit of care and a little reseeding would make it look great but because these sections can be seen at the same time I'd like more consistency. I also feel Black Beauty might do better in shade than fine fescues.



I'm excited to finally get this process started and will be posting updates as I go.

I tried to grow two containers of grass indoors. The first was Jonathan Green Dense Shade grass seed which I was hoping would do well with the limited light on my desk. The second was Jonathan Green Black Beauty grass seed mix that I'm considering using if I do a lawn renovation. I had both containers sitting on my desk and created a time lapse video of the Black Beauty Grass seed germinating as well as some of the Dense Shade I replanted because the old seed I used didn't germinate very well.



The video covers 15 days starting from the 2nd day of planting the Black Beauty grass seed.



I was surprised that Black Beauty appeared to do better in these low light conditions compared to the Dense Shade mix but the Dense Shade also had a number of issues going against it.









Black Beauty is on the left and Dense Shade on the right. Under these conditions where I could easily keep the soil moist and no direct sun was hitting the seeds to dry them out the seeds started to germinate very quickly. I used a homemade guide and a pair of scissors to cut the grass evenly a few times during the video.



I used to move the Dense Shade container onto a sunny window sill every couple of days so it could get some direct sunlight. After starting the time lapse video I had to keep the container in the same spot (more or less). At some point I started using a small desk to illuminate part of the containers to give the video a more even appearance. The side of the Dense Shade container that had direct light on it 24 hours a day from a very low wattage desk lamp did much better than the other side of the container that only had some indirect sunlight through North facing windows. The Black Beauty container on the other hand did well all over.



There were a few things going against the Dense Shade mix. First I used grass seed that was over 2 years old that gave me poor germination. Second, the potting mix was infested with fungus gnats. I used neem oil to kill them but I saw the larvae crawling around in the video a few times.



The Black Beauty didn't seem to have the same issues with the fungus gnats or at least not as bad. In the video it looks like there might have been some but the grass had grown in very thick and it was hard to see the potting mix. I did see some fungus gnats landing on the blades of grass but they may have come from the other container.



Black Beauty, as some other TTTF grass varieties are infected with endophytes (a beneficial fungus) that helps control insects. That might be the reason that there wasn't a problem but another reason might be because I didn't plant them both at the same time. I used Jungle Growth's Organic Potting Mix and I've seen other complaints about fungus gnat infestation but from what I also read this is a problem with many different potting mixes. I planted the Dense Shade as soon as I opened the bag of potting mix while it was still moist. Black Beauty on the other hand was planted weeks later and I had already filled the container with the potting mix. During those weeks the mix had dried out. This might have killed off any eggs or larvae in that container.



I chose to plant the grass in a container because it was the middle of summer and way too hot to plant the grass outdoors in a test plot and I wanted to get at least some sense of what Black Beauty might look like. So far it seems like a pretty decent grass mix with very good germination and nice color. It's also a little cheaper and more readily available than what some consider elite grass seed.



You can also read more of my thoughts on Black Beauty as well as why I'm considering Turft-Type Tall Fescue instead of Kentucky Bluegrass..

As you can see the Jonathan Green Black Beauty Grass I'm growing indoors in a container had gotten over 3" tall and was starting to look a bit ragged so I thought today would be a good time to trim my indoor lawn.



Obviously I can't use my lawn mower so I needed to come up with another way to get a nice, even, level cut for my indoor lawn.



I created a cutting guide and I'm using a pair of scissors to mow my indoor grass. I'll describe how I made the mowing guide and how I used it below.

Indoor Grass Cutting Guide

I wanted to cut my indoor grass at about 2.5". This would keep it at a height where it should be able to stand up on it's own, even when it starts getting thicker, and it would also be tall enough to give visual interest.



I cut 2.5" wide strips out of a hanging file folder. You could use other similar thin cardboard material. I then folded the cardboard at 90 degrees at the corners and sized it so it would rest along the rim of my container. I used staples to connect the pieces.






This gave me a guide all the way around the grass container that I could use to get a nice even cut and I could rest the scissors gently on the edge to establish my height.

Fiskars Cuts+More Scissors

Having a long pair of scissors makes it easy to get an even cut but I couldn't find an old pair of scissors I had that were long enough. Okay, maybe I just needed an excuse to by a new toy and the Fiskars Cuts+More Titanium Shear looked like a great pair of scissors that would not only be work well at cutting my indoor lawn but also be useful in the garden in many other ways.



The total length of the scissors is 9" but the cutting blades are only about 3.75" long. The titanium blades are sharp right out of the package and to help keep the blades sharp so they don't damage the grass tips there's an easy to use ceramic sharpening rod built into the plastic sheath that's included with the scissors. The scissors are backed by Fiskars Lifetime Warranty.



As the name implies, this is more than just a pair of scissors. The sheath also includes a tape cutting tool which can be used to open boxes. The back end of the scissors can be used to cut thin wire.



There is a sharp notch on the outside edge of one of the blades that is used to cut thin twine and larger rope can be cut with the scissors by placing it all the way down into the curved area near the joint.



When the scissors are closed the protruding tip is rounded over to keep you from poking things that don't want to be poked with sharp things but the other blade contains a sharp awl tip. By opening the scissors all the way you can separate the blades and use the black blade, with the awl tip, as a knife. It even has a small set of teeth (like one of those Rambo survival knives without the compass, matches, fishing line and hooks) that could be used for some very light duty sawing.



The plastic handles appear to be durable and firmly attached to the titanium blades anre are very comfortable. The scissors are designed for a right-handed person. They're usable if you're a lefty but the way the curves in the handles don't feel as comfortable. When using the scissors with my left hand my knuckles were hitting the top of the finger hole in a way that they weren't when using my right hand.



When you're done working on your landscape there's even a bottle opener to crack open a nice cold one while you relax.

Mowing The Indoor Lawn

Using my Fiskars Cuts+More scissors lightly resting on the cardboard cutting guide I worked my way around the grass to even out the height. Since the cardboard is thin I was careful to not distort it too much or push it so that it falls off the rim.






After the majority of the grass was cut I removed the guide and inspected the grass from a lawn from a low angle to see if there were any blades that were missed and I cut them freehand.



The Fiskars scissors gave a nice clean cut like a reel mower would give. Reel mowers are great for young grass and they seem to be recommended especially for tall fescue because the wider blades and stiffer plant appear to be damaged by rotary mower blades more easily. Jonathan Green claims their Black Beauty grass isn't ass susceptible as other tall fescues.



After I was done cutting I brushed the blades of the grass back and forth with my fingers to work the clipping down to the soil where it will eventually break down and return nitrogen to the grass. Fresh, new, healthy grass feels great. It almost feels like rubber.



The end result was a more uniform looking desk lawn :)

It's been 25 days since I planted the Jonathan Green Dense Shade and 9 days since I planted the Jonathan Green Black Beauty grass seeds in containers indoors. The Black Beauty is doing much better than the Dense Shade as can be seen from the photo on the left. Black Beauty is on top.



The Black Beauty stand almost reminds me of the decorative wheatgrass that is more commonly grown indoors.



The Dense Shade had a lot going against it. First I used seed that was a few years old but I did manage to get pretty good germination by putting a lot more seed down than recommended. There were some thin spots and I added more seed as well as more potting mix to raise the level of the soil because it had compressed a bit after watering. Over the past few days the new seeds have begun sprouting.



Next, I noticed an infestation of bugs in the Dense Shade container. After doing some research I determined they were likely fungus gnats. You can see a cool video of neem oil killing the fungus gnats and their larvae. The bugs appear to have stunted the growth of the grass. The new seeds are doing well but if the old grass doesn't recover it's just not going to look good.



The Black Beauty grass has been doing much better although when the Dense Shade was 10 days old it was looking pretty good too. I used fresh seed for the Black Beauty and it germinated a lot better and I have good coverage with no bare spots unlike Dense Shade. There are still Black Beauty seeds germinating.



The grass is also standing upright while the Dense Shade has slumped over. The Black Beauty is about 3" tall. In a couple of days I'm going to have to give it it's first mowing.



Both containers are getting some indirect light from north facing windows plus some additional light from the room lights. That seems to be enough. So far Black Beauty appears to be more shade tolerant than I thought.



Jonathan Green Claims Black Beauty contains endophytes which help make it more insect resistant. When I noticed the fungus gnats infesting the Dense Shade container I didn't see any in the Black Beauty container but I don't know for sure if the endophytes were the reason why.



The main reason I started the Black Beauty was to see how thick the blades get. Right now the blades still have a very fine texture but I can see they're begging to get a little wider. So far it's looking like it might be a good choice for my lawn renovation.



Here's a top view of both grass containers. Black Beauty is on the right, Dense Shade is on the left.

A quick update on the two grasses I'm growing indoors in containers. One's doing well, ran into a problem with bugs in the other used neem oil to kill them. Happened to catch it all on video which is included further down.



The picture on the left is the Jonathan Green Black Beauty at Day 6. It has germinated very well and some shoots are still popping up. Average blade length seems to be about an inch with some about 1/4" and half a dozen or so that have grown about 2" long.



Black Beauty displays significantly more phototropism compared to the Jonathan Green Dense Shade I have growing next to it. During the day the Black Beauty blades are pointing towards the window. After the sun starts to go down I turn on the room light so it can get a little more light and the blades start to stand upright fairly quickly. I'll be able to demonstrate this a little better in a few days.



So far it's looking pretty healthy. Germination was a lot better and more even than the Dense Shade and that's most likely due to the age of the Dense Shade. It was an old bag that was 3 years old. I should have taken the time to buy a new bag.



These are pretty ideal conditions for the lawn other than sunlight. Temperature controlled environment, good pH, growing medium rich in organic material, ability to keep the seeds moist throughout the day.  The grass is getting some indirect sun from a couple of North facing windows and I supplement that with some artificial light from time to time.



From the top it doesn't look as impressive yet but you can see how even the germination was.






In a week or so I think it will fill in much better. From the side it's already looking pretty good.



The Dense Shade on the other hand hasn't been fairing so well on Day 22. On Day 17 it was looking decent except for some areas with poor germination which as I mentioned was likely due to the age of the seed. I had topdressed with some additional organic potting mix, added more seed and another small layer of potting mix. I also switched to filtered water at that time.



As you can see it's filling in a bit but the grass has gone a bit limp and lost some of it's color.








The growth seems to have stunted although some of the new seed is germinating and filling in the bare areas. Some of the older grass tips have browned. It looks like insect damage and I did see a couple of small critters on the grass which I squished. Not sure what they are or how they would have come inside. They were tiny flying bugs. I haven't seen any on the Black Beauty which claims to be naturally resistant to some insects.



Uhm... since I wrote that last paragraph I found out it's definitely bugs! I'm doing a time lapse recording of the growth and what I thought was some sort of video artifact is actually little tiny things crawling around. I sprayed some Organica K+Neem on them which seemed to work pretty well. K+Neem is no longer made but other products like Green Light Organic Neem Concentrate are still available.  Neem oil is a contact killer and doesn't have any residual effects. In a couple of days if I still see any I'll spray again.



Here's a portion of the video. You can clearly see the white bugs (larvae?) crawling around on the potting mix on the bottom right. In the middle of the video I sprayed the neem oil which put an end to them. The bugs are really tiny so you might need to watch the video in HD and fullscreen to notice them.





Black Beauty is supposed to be naturally insect resistant. I'm not sure if that's why nothing is crawling on that side or not?



After some research and having a closer look at one of the adult ones, it seems they were fungus gnats. Some more Googling and it seems other people have complained about gnats in Jungle Growth Organic potting mix. Don't know if they came in the mix, found they're way through a slightly damaged screen came in the door or hitched a ride on a pet. I'm going to keep a close eye on it. Have noticed a couple of gnats since I posted this but don't see the gnat larvae crawling around on the soil like before.



I'm hoping that the Dense Shade perks back up soon. The topdressing might have stressed it, the bugs surely did and while the neem oil shouldn't harm the grass too much could cause it problems.



Here's a top view.






It doesn't look as good compared to the Black Beauty on the bottom but when the Dense Shade was young it looked much better too. We'll see what happens in the next few days.

I'm growing Jonathan Green Black Beauty grass seed in a container as a little experiment to get a better feel for it to see if it's a grass I'd like to plant when I do a lawn renovation.



It's been 4 days since I planted the Black Beauty grass seed in an organic potting mix.  I'm planting it in a container so I can better monitor and maintain it.



Yesterday I started to see signs that germination had started but today is the first I'm seeing little green shoots of grass emerging from the soil.



So far it looks like I'm getting pretty even coverage. 4 days is pretty quick for this type of grass to germinate but since it's sitting on my desk I'm able to closely monitor the soil moisture and add water when necessary.



One major difference I see compared to the germination of Dense Shade mix is that the blades of Black Beauty that are emerging are already leaning towards the sunlight coming through the windows. The Dense Shade on the other hand came straight up.

Black Beauty (left) Dense Shade (right)

One small section of the container is shaded by an obstruction and in that area the grass is coming straight up. I'm not sure if there's any significance to this observation but I wonder if the leaning grass shoots means Black Beauty wants more sunlight than Dense Shade?

It's day 17 of my project to grow grass indoors and it's been coming along nicely but not great. There were two main issues that were bugging me.



First, the level of the potting mix had fallen quite a bit after watering it a few days and I had wished that I added more potting mix to start out with. When I started my Jonathan Green Black Beauty experiment I made sure I had enough potting mix.



Second, while about 70% of the area had filled in nicely the other sections were very thin. This is most likely due my use of grass seed that about 3 years old. I tried using more grass seed to compensate but still got spotty results. Grass was still germinating, not all the varieties germinate at the same time, and those areas did have some new grass sprouting but I decided to ramp things up.



First I started by topdressing with about 1/4" of additional organic potting mix. I used my fingers to rake the potting mix down.



Then I added some more grass seed, concentrating mostly on the thin areas and topped it with about another 1/4" of organic potting mix.



Finally I watered it in but I've made some changes to my watering.



Instead of using water straight out of the tap and letting it warm up to room temperature I filled my spray bottle with filtered water from a Brita pitcher to cut down on the chlorine. Instead of using plain water I mixed in some Organica Plant Growth Activator Plus which contains a number of different beneficial soil bacteria and fungi as well as humic acid, seaweed extract, and some hydrolized soy meal.



The application of PGA+ was the reason I chose filtered water since the chlorine in my tap water kills the bacteria and fungi but I'm going to continue to use filtered water from now. Can't imagine the chlorine is good for the plants either.



The grass doesn't look as full as it did this morning because as careful as I tried to be, the top dressing did bury some of the blades of grass.



It's hard to tell in the photo because the color doesn't come through great in the photo but the color of the grass is starting to darken as well.

All the lawn geeks seem to use a blend of Kentucky Bluegrass to get a great looking, dark green lawn. At least that's what it seems like when reading different lawn sites and forums. I decided to check out Jonathan Green's Black Beauty Turf-Type Tall Fescue grass seed mix because I've heard some good things about it.



There are some people out there posting great lawn photos using other grass varieties besides KBG such as turf-type tall fescue (TTTF) and perennial ryegrass. I'm a bit weary of TTTF because there is some mixed into my lawn and it's thick bladed compared to my other grasses, grows faster and generally looks like a weed compared to my other grass.



From what I'm hearing though the new varieties of TTTF aren't as coarse and wide bladed as the old varieties of tall fescue and they're hard to distinguish from KBG. The tall fescue I have in my lawn is an older variety and possibly the K-31 I see so many complaining about.



Nothing I've tried so far has really reduced the tall fescue in my lawn. I haven't applied a broad spectrum herbicide to it but overseeding with more KBG and pulling out a few clumps here and there hasn't done anything. When I get heavy rains and forget or don't have time to apply corn meal other parts of my lawn turn a little reddish brown except for the tall fescue.



During the heat of summer when my finer bladed grass goes dormant if I don't water it enough, the tall fescue remains green and sticks out like a sore thumb being all green. That's when it dawned on me. Why fight it? The tall fescue wasn't always sticking out because it was bad, it was sticking out because it was good. It's also grows very dense and crowds out weeds.



That's when I decided to give Black Beauty a try. I've started it in a container indoors just like I did with my Jonathan Green Dense Shade Mix which I'm hoping will make a nice desk lawn :)



I don't know how well Black Beauty will do indoors so I'll likely move it outside at some point. What I'm really interested in with this little experiment is to see what the grass will finally look like. Hopefully it will grow enough that I can get a good feel for it before fall when I might do a lawn renovation. I literally mean feel. I want a grass that's nice to walk on barefoot. I don't imagine it will be as soft as shade type fine fescues but I'm hoping it will be good enough. The low maintenance and low water claims are really what appeal to me.



Where I live we get sufficient rainfall and most people in my town don't have lawn sprinkler systems except for some commercial properties and a small percentage of new construction. A lawn probably only needs about 16 or so inches of supplemental water around here. If the Black Beauty can do better without supplemental water compared to KBG and I can reduce some watering that could be a decent savings.



One often repeated rule of thumb is that lawns need 1" of water per week (not exactly but let's just use 1" for now). Based on that 1" of water turns out to be about 620 gallons of water per 1,000 sq ft of lawn. Multiplied by 12 is 9,920  gallons per 1,000 sq ft per year. That's about $80 per year per 1,000 sq ft and that's provided it's a year that I get at least average rainfall distributed fairly regularly, which doesn't always happen. That $80 is just for the water. My utility company charges me sewer fees based on water usage even if that water never goes down the drain. If you have a large lawn and don't get a lot of evenly spaced out rain watering your lawn would be hundreds of dollars a year.



The dollar savings isn't huge but soil microbes are very important to an organic lawn and applying chlorinated city water will kill some of those beneficial bacteria and especially the beneficial fungi you've worked so hard to build up or in some cases payed good money to apply! Rainwater is much better for a lawn and if I can get a lawn that needs almost no supplemental irrigation I'd be very happy.



This year I've basically let my lawn go dormant. Unfortunately weeds don't go dormant at the same time grass does which is why I'm seriously considering a renovation this year and trying to select the best grass seed.

About Black Beauty Grass Seed

Anyway, back to Black Beauty... I picked up a 5lb bag at my local garden center so I can test it out. It was $21.99 regular price but it was on sale for $13.20. When it's not on sale it seems a little cheaper to buy a 15 lb bag of Jonathan Green Black Beauty Grass Seed Mix online.



A 5lb bag will cover 1,500 sq ft when overseeding or 750 sq ft when seeding bare soil. A 15lb bag will cover 4,500 sq ft for overseeding 2,250 sq ft for seeding bare soil.



The bag had a zip closing top which was nice since I'm only using about a handful of grass seed and will use the rest this fall if I like it. If I don't do a full lawn renovation I might wind up just overseeding it.



Jonathan Green claims the following about Black Beauty:

• Waxy coating helps preserve moisture and increase drought tolerance.


• Contains endophytes for natural insect resistance.


• Shade tolerant and preforms better than fine fescues in fertile soil (maybe it'll be a better desk lawn than Dense Shade?)


• Used by sod farms (Seems to be true I found a number of sod farms that proudly sell it.)


• Dark green color


• Resists disease (due to invisible waxy coating)

Black Beauty Cultivars

All grass seed is required by the USDA to be tested for content and germination. The Black Beauty label lists the following cultivars:

• 49.25% Dakota Tall Fescue


• 24.65% Montana Tall Fescue


• 24.50% Dorado Tall Fescue


• 1.40% Inert Matter


• 0.08% Other crop seeds


• 0.02% weed seeds

If you haven't obsessed over grass seed for the past few years like I have here's something that might be useful. Grass comes in different grass varieties such as Kentucky Bluegrass, Fine Fescue, Tall Fescue, Turf-Type Tall Fescue, Perennial Ryegrass, Bermuda, St Augustine, Zoysia, etc. Within those varieties you have different grass cultivars which are different plants within that variety. Just like you have fruit, some of those are apple and a granny smith is a type of apple.



Previous descriptions have listed Black Beauty's cultivars as 50% Dakota Tall Fescue, 25% Taos Tall Fescue and 25% Tombstone Tall Fescue. I don't know if the mix has changed globally or just in my area. I do remember reading that Black Beauty might have had some issues with disease and the change in the two cultivars might be related to that.



I can't find any information on these varieties on NTEP.org which concerns me a bit. All I could find was this sheet about Black Beauty's drought ratings which contains NTEP data and says the tests were done on NTEP sites. According to that sheet Montana and Dorado perform significantly better than Taos and Tombstone and have a darker color.



Montana Tall Fescue and Dorado Tall Fescue also had a much higher texture rating. This experiment I'm doing is all about texture. Ideally I'd plant this outside in the same soil I'd be planting my grass to see how it performs there but my main concern right now is how the grass will look and feel.



Dorado Tall Fescue appears to have a pretty fine texture based on the ratings and photos on this tech sheet. It also has a very nice dark green color



The tech sheets are from Cascade International which is described as a sister company to Jonathan Green. Guessing here, but I think Cascade is the seed grower and possibly the supplier to sod farms while JG is more geared towards consumers when it comes to grass seed.



There is 0.08% other crop seed which area other types of grasses not listed as the main cultivars. These can be unwanted and even weed type grasses. The weed seed content is 0.02% which consists of non grass weeds. Ideally you'd want 0% of each but from what I read anything less than 1% is fine so 0.1% of unwanted seed might not be too bad.

Black Beauty Grass Photos

I've seen a number of different photos of Black Beauty grass and they look really good. This is a close up photo of a piece of Black Beauty sod.






The next photo was taken a year after laying the sod and the claim is that it hasn't been fertilized since. That's definitely a lawn I would be proud of!

KBG vs TTTF

I've been stressing out over this decision for a long time. It's why I haven't done my lawn renovation in prior years.



I spent a lot of time reviewing NTEP ratings for grass in my area, primarily for Kentucky Bluegrass but even though KBG lawns look so nice it seems they need a lot of care to look so good. When I'm lax in my lawn care it shows. Meanwhile I've seen lawns in my neighborhood that get very little attention and look decent. Those lawns appear to be tall fescue based on the blade length. I'm not great at identifying lawns.



When the tall fescue in my lawn doesn't get enough water it stays green but gets a little stiffer, almost crunchy when you walk on it compared to the finer bladed grasses that have turned brown.



In my heart I want to have a custom blended elite KBG mix but even though I care about lawns enough to blog about them it's just a lawn and I don't want to spend too much time doing things to it.



I've seen pictures of KBG lawns that stay green in drought while TTTF lawns have gone brown. I've also seen the opposite where TTTF lawns stayed green while KBG has gone brown.



Both can have a nice dark green color if properly managed.



TTTF is a clumping grass and KBG has rhizomes so it can fill in and repair itself while TTTF will need to be overseeded. Jonathan Green does make a Black Beauty Ultra which contains some KBG and some perennial rye so you can have a self repairing TTTF lawn. I went with the regular Black Beauty because I wanted to have one type of grass that would grow evenly. Right now I have some grasses that grow faster than others and it looks messy by the time I have to mow. They may have chosen cultivars that blend well together but right now I'm stressing out so much over KBG vs TTTF I don't even want to think about mixing the two.



Black Beauty germinates in 10-14 days compared to up to 21 days for KBG. That's a somewhat important factor as I don't want to babysit seedlings and have to hand water multiple times a day to keep the seed moist.



While the majority of lawn fanatics seem to favor Kentucky Bluegrass when planting cool season grasses, there are some TTTF and even PR diehards.



Even Paul Tukey of SafeLawns.org had good things to say about it in this Boston Globe article:

"I like the Jonathan Green Black Beauty Mix," said Tukey. "Blue grass was originally imported as cattle feed because it's so fast growing. So if you want to mow your lawn every four days, go ahead and plant blue grass and knock yourself out."

I'm still undecided and fall is fast approaching. I'm really hoping this experiment gives me some more perspective one way or the other. I think it's going to come down to less maintenance/water but slightly wider grass blades or more maintenance/water but finer blades. I think maintenance/water will win out.

Planting Black Beauty Test

I followed the same procedure as I did for my other container grass. Some of it can bee seen in the top of the photos. I think I had poor germination because I used an old bag of seed. This new bag was bought today.






Filled a well draining planter about 1/4" from the top with organic potting mix. I filled it up more this time because after watering a couple of days the mix compressed a bit and sank too far below the top than I would have liked.






Evenly spread a handful of Jonathan Green Black Beauty grass seed over the top. This was a much heavier application than necessary.






Mixed the seed by hand to spread it out and get good seed to soil contact. I'm going to check in a little bit and possibly cover with a little more potting mix if there's enough room. I didn't do that the last time and saw plenty of seeds germinate that were just sitting on top of the potting mix.






Covered with coffee filters and added about a cup of water. Will be watering with a spray bottle 2-3 times throughout the day until seeds germinate at which point I'll carefully remove the coffee filters (seeds sometimes stick to them). These planters are near a North facing window so they get some indirect sun throughout the day. I've occasionally moved the top planter to a south facing window so it can get some more direct sun.