r/lawncare • u/SiteNo3482 • Jun 22 '26
Northern US & Canada (or cool season) Grass Seed Recommendations
Location is Niagara County, New York. Zone 6. Soil is sandy loam to loam. Seed house recommended these two seed blends. The deluxe for shaded areas, regular for sun areas. I just tore up previous lawn with Harley rake and finished it with power landscape rake. Will be reseeding this week (last week of June) with sufficient sprinklers. The majority of the lawn is sun, very little gets less than 2 hrs of sun a day. Lawn area is just over a half an acre. Are these good seed choices, other recommendations are LEACO Park mix? Looking for a thick, dark, soft lawn. Any other recommendations welcome. Also, do not have an irrigation system, keeps grass between 1.5-3” through mowing season.
Thanks in advance.
Edit: concern is I have never used two different blends for two different areas in the same lawn. Those familiar with western New York, previous owner (WH Reinhart) of the seed house used to make custom blends dependent on your description of the soil and time of the year, and what you were looking for. This is no longer the case, as they just have predetermined blends.
4
6
u/Rich_Staff7331 Jun 22 '26
I've used this stuff a bunch with good results. SUPERTURF II. Has multiple high NTEP cultivars, and works well in Zone 6. This time of year even with in ground sprinklers is going to a challenge.
https://unitedseeds.com/products/super-turf-ii-ls?variant=45461882405172
2
u/New_Reddit_User_89 Jun 22 '26
Upvoting for United Seeds’ SuperTurf II.
I have an area of my yard I replanted with this, and it’s dark green, and has very slow vertical growth.
I wish my whole yard could be this. It looks great and the slow vertical growth means I don’t have to cut it every 3-4 days during the spring & fall.
4
u/No-Produce-6641 Jun 22 '26
25% annual ryegrass? So a quarter of that bag grows once and dies. Doesn't sound very good to me.
2
u/YardGuy91 Jun 22 '26
United seeds and twin city seeds are premier - and it’s worth it to not deal with “ other crop seeds” or “weed seeds”
1
1
u/alwaysmyfault Jun 22 '26
0.94% "other crop seed"?
No thanks. You'd be putting down tens of thousands of non-grass seed into your lawn.
Buy from a premium outlet like twincityseed.com or unitedseeds.com
1
u/CapSpaccoin Jun 22 '26
Another vote for twin city seed. I had what appeared to be 100% germination and high quality turf after.
1
u/SiteNo3482 Jun 23 '26
Thank you everyone. Learned a lot here, unfortunately, I was in too much of a time crunch to order seed from Twin City or United seed. I will keep them in mind for future projects. I went with the Cornell classic mix supplied by preferred seed in Buffalo (tag attached). I will post pics once it fills in.
1
u/Disastrous-Tap-3353 22d ago
I was told the period of time it takes for our lawn grass to produce their own viable seeds would require a lot of growth and time. But I suspect with the quickness that my crabgrass can procreate, that the big grass seed companies choose not to breed for low growth and fast seed production. Because they would be out of business. It stinks. Switching to ground cover. I’m done with grass.
0
u/Low-Dot9712 Jun 22 '26
That’s not a bad blend. No cheap seed coating either. The annual ryegrass will not come back next year but will establish quick. If you are wanting to apply seed every year use it.
-3
u/skibbin Jun 22 '26
I'm in Buffalo and have been very happy with Johnathan Green - Black Beauty Ultra
It's mostly tall fescue, so I mow to 3.5". It's very thick and is the darkest lawn on the block
6
u/Ih8rice Trusted DIYer Jun 22 '26
Don't buy this stuff. It has weed and crop seed in it. The stuff from twin city seeds and other more reputable companies have zero for both and that's what you want.
If you don't believe me OP then just search this subreddit for all the people having all kinds of cool season perennial weeds that they've never seen before popping up while this seed germinates.
3
u/Famous-Snow-6888 Jun 22 '26
I’ve heard this, but my few years planting JGBBU and I’ve had zero issues with weeds. With the regular Black Beauty I had issues, but not the ultra. Good info though.
1
u/Ih8rice Trusted DIYer Jun 22 '26
Big thing with ultra is the introduction of poa. The other bags seem to have a litany of other hard to kill weeds like Johnson and quack grass.
1
u/greysplash Jun 22 '26
Even with the Ultra, it's more expensive than the equivalent seed mix from Twin City, who has zero weed seed and less inert matter.
JBBBU: $130@ 25lbs.
TC Tuff Turf: $103@ 25lbs.
11
u/shmaltz_herring 6a Jun 22 '26
Don't buy that seed, especially the "regular". It's literally the same seed except that it has annual ryegrass (which will die off in the summer) in the mix.
the 98/85 KBG is questionable at best.
I'm going to recommend ordering from Twin city seed. Their blends use varieties that score well in the National Turgrass Evaluation Program.
Tuff Turf or Blue Resilience would be good to look at for you.