Jonathan Green (12007) Black Beauty Sun & Shade Grass Seed - Cool Season Lawn Seed, 50 lb

This spring, we repaired several bare spots in our lawn using Black Beauty Sun & Shade grass seed. We also tried two less expensive brands, Pennington and Scotts, and found no comparison in performance. Black Beauty germinated in roughly half the time and produced thick, lush growth that quickly filled in the bare areas. The photo shows one of the patches after about a month of growth. Regular watering is important for achieving the best results. In our experience, the higher price is justified by the superior germination and overall quality.

Jonathan Green Black Beauty Sun and Shade Grass Seed is the best grass seed I’ve ever purchased. I live in central Illinois where we have rainy springs, hot humid summers with little rain from late July through October. Lawns in central Illinois look green and robust through the spring but by August the summer drought has kicked in leaving lawns burned up, brown and dry. This includes watering once or twice a week. You just can’t beat the summer drought.This year I’ve decided to really try & have a nice looking lawn. In March I started raking up all the dead grass & debris from 2025. I have a 1/2 acre lot with most of the yard shaded. I raked the entire lot. After raking the back yard it looked like an apocalypse came through. I put down 10-15 bags of top soil plus peat moss. Very thin layers of each. Then I took my grass seed spreader & reseeded the lawn with Johnathan Green Black Beauty Sun & Shade Grass Seed. I did this in late March. Once I reseeded it I gently raked any bare spots to make sure the seed made contact with the dirt. After that I watered every day for 3 solid weeks. Every day I would look at my yard & nothing. No sprouting, nothing. Around the second week of April the grass seed started to sprout and the bare spots started to fill in. By the first of May my entire lawn looked 95% better! We’ve lived here 40 years & it’s the best spring lawn we’ve ever had! We are so pleased with this product!Moving forward I plan to stay on top of watering 1-2 times a week. In August-September I plan to reseed the entire lawn again focusing on any bare spots that don’t survive the summer drought including where squirrels dig holes in yard looking for whatever they are looking for. I hate squirrels. The lawn looks so good & then the squirrels invade it and dig small chunks of yard for some reason.So my lessons learned this spring are raking up all the dead stuff, amending the bare spots with top soil and peat moss where needed, watering every day through germination and not giving up. Things take time. I’m very happy with this product & anxious to see what my lawn looks like after the summer drought.

Working great so far! Sprouted quickly as advertised and filled in dead spots within weeks. Very satisfied

This grass seed is pretty good. The growth rate is OK and the grass looks great once it starts growing. It is sometimes a little hard to get started and wants to die, but if you consistently water and use good topsoil you’ll be good. The price on this seat is very good compared to local hardware store stores.

I paid a premium for this product, and overseeded with it in the fall of 2023. In the spring of 2024, a large amount of undesirable grass emerged. (I am confident that the grass in question came from this product, because the grass only emerged in the specific areas where I had used it to overseed—which, unfortunately for me, was nearly half of our yard). The grass is light-colored and fast-growing, with wide blades (up to 3/8”) and a thick stalk that is red at the base. Based on some Googling, I believe it is ryegrass. According to the bag, perennial ryegrass makes up nearly 35% of the seed blend in this product. But I am really surprised that they would select such an unsightly and undesirable variety. I won’t make the mistake of buying this product again, but I fear that getting rid of what has emerged will prove to be an impossible task.

Fantastic product, packed very welll for shipping, and it's delivered ultra fast.

Always amazing grass seed I’ll never buy any other than Jonathan Green. This is probably my fifth purchase.

I haven’t used this product yet but I was told that it works well.

Best seed product I’ve ever used.