You may want to visit NTEP.ORG, which is the official testing program for cultivars. You can see the color, turfgrass quality, etc. ratings by testing location. Just be aware that there are many, many cultivars on that site and many (maybe even most) of the cultivars are extremely difficult to find ...

I've tried to find it but no one here sells Emblem. You won't find "Emblem" at any local stores, period. The Elite KBG's are a specialty niche and the newer (like "Emblem") or lesser-well-known cultivars are a "niche within a niche". Since grass seed has a shorter shelf-life and Elites are relative...

We ALL forget that not everyone has the same circumstances. There was a thread about the "walk and springback test" for telling when a lawn needs water just yesterday. A poster comes along a says "it doesn't work for me". I looked at his lawn profile = K-31 Tall Fescue. Duh! No wonder it doesn't wor...

I think that C&C was being self-deprecating (of the entire clan of us) and fatalistic, for yucks. The same way I named my blog "The Poa Plantation - Expensive Ways to Grow Bad Grass".

Let's see... I could add an automatic watering system to my yard. Cost? But nature will be inconvenient and keep screwing up my watering schedule. To fix that, I could purchase a weather station (very cool, but cost?) and purchase a service that tells my watering system what the need for watering is...

BP, you are right on the money. It was late-night in my time zone when I wrote the response and I didn't get into the details. I was trying to assure the OP that he hadn't killed the lawn. About softened water - I've researched this in depth more because of my aquarium hobby than due to the lawn hob...

I don't use the tuna cans for that myself - I have three massively-complex $1.99 rain gauges from the Home Despot. I leave one for a week before emptying, and another for rainfall-per-storm. The third is in case I screw up one of the first two (common). The $1.99 ones have this great instant-reset f...

how does a sod farm have acres of KBG with no weeds?

Soil-sterilizing fumigation. I've been hoping that TW will let us know what percentage of sod farmers practice it. or what the other methods to achieve the same results are...

Absolutely. If you want to know how much it rained at your house, then measure at your house. I live in a town called Central Valley. It is a valley between one set of low mountains that are fading down to foothills in my area, and another set of mountains that are rising from foothills into low mou...

.After I set em to come on, off, on and off again sunday morning.

Be careful - those switches are only designed for one million on/off cycles.

Ummmmm... how to say this nicely....

Yikes -> Megayikes -------------------->>> Megayawn.

There are hundreds of thousands or millions of people that use softened water on their lawn 365 days a year.

No big deal.

Ask Andy what happens if the water conditions get just a little off in a high-end aquarium.

Are you saying that you are worried because the water that you used was through the water softener?

Rainbows: If there is one constant theme that I have figured out over many years of growing grasses, its that trying to outwit Mother Nature never works. Oh, you may get the effect that you were looking for, but with 1,000 bizarre side effects. Your local microherd has evolved to be as perfect as ca...

Thanks, Abyss. I was just trying to be balanced and tell the bad with the good. I would call mine a light-to-moderate cosmetic case, but it requires watching. Its good to know that Emlem's parent cultivars got over the "juvenile KBG" problems.

Chia:

Welcome to the site!

I personally think that you need to do your math. 3.5 lbs of seed for $45 ??? That's 3X to 4X more than you should pay. Just in case you forget to sprinkle it? That's a LOT of money for that.

So is mine. I just have to dig through the Poa Annua to get to it. Here's an couple comments: It's dark. Really dark. Sometimes it looks more blue/black/dark-grey than green to me. Sorry, I can't explain the color better than that. Mine is pretty prone to Powdery Mildew in even the smallest amount o...

My irrigation is shut off from November until April. Now that we need irrigation again should I immediately switch to once a week for the lawn or should I explore root depths or something else? Go to deep, infrequent right away - you haven't trained the roots to come to the surface, so there is no ...

SD:

I'll go over it in detail later (I'm just on a break at the moment from lawn work), but its not so bad.

About the "patience" part: they don't use the phrase "like watching grass grow" without reason.

Big time applause for sticking it out and making the commitment!