I want to re-seed my lawn this Spring. I think it's a mixture of Rye, Fescue and Kentucky Bluegrass. What's a good brand of seed to use. I don't need the country club quality lawn, just a fairly descent one consistent with the neighborhood lawns. Any other tips or advice would be appreciated.

I hope you don't mind that I moved your post to the cool-season lawn forum. Here it will be more likly seen by our Cool-season lawn experts. Turf toes, Bestlawn, BPgreen, I am sure will be able to assist you. Dchall_San_Antonio, although a Texan knows a little about Northern grass too.
Bill Hill

I was in Lowes and Home Depot today. Neither one has their lawn supply materials out yet. I also need some grass seed and was wondering what kind to get for my NW Ohio grass. I found this website summit seed. They have just about every kind of seed you would need. But Boy! They Are Not Cheap.

Fall is a better time to seed in Chicago than spring. You'll get more weed germination in the spring, and you'll also give the new grass less time to establish before the heat of the summer kicks in.

Spring seeding will still work, but it won't be as successful as fall seeding would have been.

If you're not looking for a showcase lawn and are just trying to match what you've got now and what the neighbors have, your best bet would probably be to buy any of the seed you find in one of the big box stores (Lowes, Home Depot, WalMart, etc). I don't think the brand matters as much as what's in the bag. Look for a low weed seed (as close to 0 as you can get).

I'd also avoid seed that includes K31 fescue. It's common in inexpensive "drought tolerant" mixes, but it's really a forage grass rather than a lawn grass. It's a bunch grass and it grows faster than most other turf grasses, so it tends to stick out in a lawn.

You can improve the germination of the new seed by core aerating before seeding and/or by lightly rolling after seeding. If you time it right, you should be able to get by without any water other than what nature provides.

Thanks billhill for moving my question to the right section. Bestlawn forum is a great place, glad I found it. And thank you bpgreen for the informative answer. I guess I missed the best opportunity for seeding but I’m still going to seed this spring. I like the idea of not having to water the new seedlings too much. I know what rolling after seeding means but what is core aerating and how do I go about accomplishing that? And what about fertilizer? I’ve heard about starter fertilizer. Should I use that or would regular lawn fertilizer be just as good?

Core aerating involves removing small circular cores from the lawn. Its main purpose is to loosen the soil and allow air to get in, but it can also be used to have more soil exposed for seeding. If your lawn is small enough, you can use a Turf Houndand do it manually. Some people rent the machines and do it themselves. Around here, it's cheaper to hire a service to do it.

I'm not a big user of fertilizers. I mostly fertilize my lawn with used coffee grounds that I get for free from Starbucks.

Thank you Bestlawn for the suggestion of Galaxy grass seed. I’ve searched around a little for Galaxy and although it isn’t cheap, I only need 10 pounds so I guess it’s affordable. I’ve decided to winter seed, skip the crabgrass killer and hope for the best as far as weeds go this year.
Bpgreen, I’m intrigued by your use of coffee grounds for fertilizer. How do you that? Surely you don’t drink enough coffee to fertilize your grass with leftover grounds ?? You have all been very helpful. Thanks again. I’ve learned a lot here on the bestlawn forum.

Starbucks has a corporate policy to make their used coffee grounds (UCG) available for free to anybody who wants them. This only applies to the stand alone stores, not the ones in places like bookstores airports, etc. Some stores don't save them if nobody is picking them up because they start to smell, but if you start stopping in and asking for them, they'll probably start saving them.

If I get them in the silver bags (repacked in the bags they came in), I walk around the yard backward, shaking the bag and moving it back and forth. If I get the big trash bags, I dump them in a bucket and use a scoop to fling them around. I spread them until I run out, then when I get more, I pick up where I left off. When I finish the lawn, I start over again. You don't need to worry too much about getting them distributed completely evenly as you do with synthetic fertilizers, because they won't produce the flush of growth that you see with synthetics. Don't spread them more than about 1/4 to 1/4 inch thick because they can repel water if they get too thick and dry out.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you have a large lawn it might not be practical to use only coffee grounds. I've got about 4000 sq ft, and really only use the UCG on half of the lawn (I let the dog fertilize the back). UCG are about 2% N, so to get 1 lb of actual N per 1000 sq ft, you need to spread 50 lbs per 1000 sq ft. To get 3 lbs of N per 1k sq ft per year, that means I need to spread about 300 lbs a year in total. That's not all that tough to do the way I do it. If you have a larger lawn, it might become impractical to try to use only UCG.