Pennington Smart Seed Sun and Shade Mix North Grass Seed, 7 lb

Takes a couple weeks to start growing, worth the wait

Planted in a recently dug up area when a septic was put in. Extremely sandy soil. 3-5 hours,of indirect sun. Took off well within 8 days and is still growing well mid Sept. bought another bag to finish the area, tried other with no luck at all.

UPDATE, it took much longer than I thought, but we have lift off. Some areas are very fertile but others took a while to catch up, a long while. The growth is very thin and im not sure how it will blend in with the rest of the lawn, but it did grow so I give it more stars. ORIGINAL REVIEW, I've taken great pains to keep my seed watered adequately. I followed the directions to a t. I even used fertilizer. I've got nothing but empty patches of dirt. I am on a limited income so I can't just buy more.

This is excellent seed. I've grown entire lawns with Pennington seed and it's great quality. I used this small bag to repair a fairly large brown spot caused by a clogged sprinkler head when I was away. The thing to realize is that growing grass from seed is not easy - you have to do it right or nothing will happen. Seed alone is seldom enough. Start your patch by breaking up the top 2"-3" of soil. Don't go deeper. If you have clay soil, you need to mix in gypsum according to the directions on the gypsum bag. Then you have to mix in compost, also per directions on the bag. A bit extra compost is better than not enough. Then you add the seed; work it into the soil so it doesn't show, but not deeper than 1" to 2" inches. Birds will eat seed on the surface; plant it too deep and the grass will die before it can reach the surface. This seed has a starter fertilizer coating, so you don't have to add any fertilizer, and should not. Too much will hurt, not help. Then you have to keep the soil moist for a couple of weeks. This means brief sprinkers 3 to 5 times per day. Don't flood it and don't soak it in the evening or you may encourage fungus growth overnight, and you don't want that. The objective is to not let the dirt completely dry out. When you see a little water pooling on the dirt, that's about enough. Put flags or a barrier of some type - someone walking on new grass will kill it. You'll see fine little stalks of new grass in 10 days to 2 weeks. It will be spotty, but will fill in. Keep it moist for another 7-10 days or until the patch is pretty well covered with new grass. Finally, you will have to get down on your knees and pull the weeds. Unfortunately, most compost has weed seeds in it. You have to pull them by hand, including the roots - don't even think about chemicals. Do this and you'll have success. Shortcuts will usually cause failure.

This is the second time I ordered this grass seed. I noticed this second time the seeds are not as well coated in the feetilizer as before; a lot of the fertilizer is just blue dust in the bag that flows around when you spread the seeds. Another thing you might want to remember that for 32 bucks a 7lb bag this grass is seriously too expensive. If you buy Kentucky blue grass that has seeds thar are at least 4 times smaller for 60 bucks, you will be paying way less for virtually the same end result of having a great grass. And the bluegrass also has a tendency to aggressively spread out naturally. Another issue with this product is that this is a mix of sun and shade varieties, but the package does not tell how much of seeds in the bag are preferring shade and how much are preferring the sun. I'd quite frankly recommend buying shade varieties and sun preferring ones separately. Otherwise, you are diminishing the chances of having good grass coverage everywhere you want. Please don't interprete this review as necessarily negative. You might as well have a variety of grasses growing on your lawn rather than a monoculture. Buy some large seed varieties like this one, then small seed varieties such as bluegrass or zoisia, and see which ones eventually grow better on your lawn. Insted of growing what you want, grow what is growing best, and for that you would want to experiment a bit... or hire a specialist who would do the work for you but for a much higher price.

I have planted grass seed quite a few times and this is by far the worst grass seed that I’ve ever used. I prepped the area, watered, laid down the seed, tapped seed down, and layed straw on top. Watered twice a day and not a single blade of grass grew! I’ve never had that happen before. So I went to a local farm store and bought a different bag of seed and redid the entire process and I now have tiny blades of grass in the entire area. I do not recommend this brand. Waste of $30!

This bag is larger than most. I had a BIG project, so I needed more than one bag. Just figure out the square footage you need to cover. The bag will tell you how much lt will do.

For 30 years I have had trouble keeping grass growing in our front yard. I've tried multiple grass seeds over the years just to be let down. After a lot of "review" reading and research on grass seeds for the North East in zone 6B and 7A I choose Pennington's Sun and Shade. Different sections of our lawn are in and out of the sun all day long. Pennington's Sun and Shade is a blend of Tall Fescue, Perennial Ryegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass and Fine Fescue. Pictures 1 through 6 were taken on the same day, the Friday of Labor Day weekend 2024. Pictures 1 & 2 is what the lawn looked like after removing all the dead grass and before I started prepping. I started removing the dead grass in early August after every mowing. In total I probably raked out three wheelbarrow loads of dead grass over the course of August. Pictures 3 & 4 is a fresh rake of the yard to loosen up the dirt. I got lucky as there was a light rain early that morning so the soil was soft. Pictures 5 & 6 is how it looked after everything was completed. These are the steps I took. 1. Removed all dead grass and debris before hand. 2. Raked and loosened up the dirt. 3. Threw down fresh top soil on top of the loosened dirt. 4. Thew down starter fertilizer by hand. 5. Thew down grass seed. Seed is a blue/green so it's easy to see where you are placing it and how much. 6. Thew down peat moss over the whole yard. 7. Used the sprinkler system to wet everything down. 8. Set the sprinklers to come on for 10 minutes every morning at 5am and every night at 6pm. I saw seedlings within 5 days. Pictures 7 & 8 were taken yesterday afternoon 18 days after seeding. I ran out of seeds and thew down some Scotts EZ Seed in the back corner and it did not come up as nice or as full as the Pennington's. So far I'm very happy with the process. I'm praying that this grass will make strong roots and last through next summer. Only time will tell.

Bought 1 bag, used to fill patches on lawn, weather mild/warm, well watered daily, after 3 weeks, seeds still visible, but zero germination. Second bag has had less time, but also no sign of anything happening.

Wort it. Grass looks amazing

Never germinated!!