Jonathan Green (10323) Black Beauty Ultra Grass Seed - Cool Season Lawn Seed (25 lb)

This is a great quality grass with a deep green color. It seems to retreat significantly in the winter, and also seems like it's slower to come alive in the Spring, but it's a great quality grass. Very nice underfoot, and the kids tell me it feels nice in barefoot. Once alive in the summer, it fills in nicely. This is a lower-growing grass compared to others, but neighbors constantly tell me how nice it looks. I was using Pennington Sun and Shade, which I liked a lot, but this is better. Recommended.UPDATE October 2019: Here in Virginia, we have a problem with Buttonweed, which left to its own devices, will grow in thick, heavy matts, crowding out even zoysia (and I didn't think anything crowded out zoysia). I tried various weed killers with 2-4-D, but they only annoyed the buttonweed and didn't kill it off. I finally decided I had enough of this menace, after trying unsuccessfully to hand-pull it (complete waste of time). So I picked up a weed killer called Celsius, which was known to kill off buttonweed for good. It was expensive, and the Celsius certainly worked - however.....There was warning that Celsius will kill off "warm weather grasses". I had no idea if Black Beauty was warm weather grass or otherwise, given it was a mix of different seed type. But it wasn't long before I found out. After my Spring fertilizing, I told a neighbor that after 15 years, I had finally gotten my lawn where I wanted it. The BB seed created a beautiful, lush, thick green lawn - as good as high quality sod, perhaps even better. But then my new seed started to slowly die off. By mid-summer, my lawn had large patches of dead grass almost as if insects had attacked it. It was obvious Celsius was the culprit.As a consolation, the Celsius definitely killed off the buttonweed. By the end of the summer, I saw only a handful of lonely buttonweed plants in a few spots in my lawn, and these were easily hand-pulled. However, I had to rebuild my lawn as a result. So I ordered more BB, and seeded right after our Summer 2019 7-week drought started in Virginia. The chips seemed to be stacked against me, but I watered regularly, and the seed came in nicely.The fact that the lawn died back is not the fault of the BB seed, but of the treatment I applied. Given a choice, I would absolutely do it again. Anyone with buttonweed in their lawn knows what I'm talking about. You need to get rid of it completely, but you should do it one season first, THEN re-seed with this seed the following season.The fact that I bought more BB seed demonstrates that I'm extremely happy with the quality of this seed, its appearance, and its desirability, and still highly recommend it. I wouldn't consider putting anything else in my lawn at this point.

Marvelous grass seed. My large lawn needed a spring refresh and a bit of patch repair after the winter weather. In my research for grass seed, finding quality uncoated seed at an acceptable price was a bit of a challenge.Black Beauty Ultra has the right mix of grasses, it is not coated, it has a high germination rate, and a very low weed percentage. Although a bit spendy, the 25lb. bag is the best value. From my results, I found this product to be an absolute winner!As a cost-cutting measure, most major brand grass seeds available from the big box stores are coated with a green spray-on clay coating. This is marketed as an aid to germination, but frankly it is not nearly as effective as advertised. The industry is well aware that clay coating is far cheaper than grass seed per pound. The clay adds lots of weight to the bag... but does little to retain moisture.In my experience with patching and reseeding lawns, doing this during moderate spring weather is ideal and avoids the intense heat of summer and poor germination rates. The best results have come from first checking the soil pH and adjusting accordingly. Then, rake up the thatch on bare spots and lay down enough seed to fully cover the patch. Thoroughly cover the reseeded bare spots with a quality potting soil or topsoil. This is important... and works much better than a spray-on clay coating on the grass seed.Keep the area frequently watered throughout the day for at least two weeks until growth is established. While germinating, do not let the seeded area dry out and do not walk on or mow while the new seedlings are beginning to grow. Wait about four to six weeks after reseeding before mowing.Once mowed, fertilize with a low to moderate nitrogen lawn fertilizer. Newly planted grass is a bit sensitive for the first 3-4 months and can burn easily if stressed by high nitrogen fertilizers.It is now eight weeks since patching and reseeding my lawn with Black Beauty Ultra. The patches are completely filled in and the entire yard is evenly green, vibrant, and very attractive. Check out this excellent grass seed for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

We order this every season. Our grass looks lovely. We even have the neighbors asking us what product do we use to get our grass so healthy

I had a driveway and some concrete work done and needed to reseed about 300 SF after the top soil was removed. I used this because the dirt is more sand than anything else and is in constant sun. I'm in the NE, so not too hot but my location is usually short on rain. I cultivated some beer waste into the sand. I spread this with some starter fertilizer and watered frequently. It took a while to show some green and I did not need to mow for 7 weeks. For comparison the rest of my lawn got mowed about every 10 days. It was better than 3 weeks for the 2nd mowing and another 3 for the 3rd. Nice and green and slow growing. I like it.

Grass has not grown.. seeds won't germinate at all even in ideal conditions, I wasted almost the whole bag of this crap on my yard. After 2 weeks of zero progress I took the remaining seeds and tried growing them in a controlled environment (warming mat, grow lights, controlled temp and humidity). After 2 weeks of that not a single sprout. What a waste of money. Maybe Amazon stores these improperly and kills the seed? Not sure.

Recommended by my mom for growing good grass. Ordered Thursday PM in order to have Friday. Friday evening received an email stating delivery wouldn't arrive until following Thursday - not cool. Of course package arrived following day.