I'm in the transition zone too. I suspect my climate is a little harder on P Rye than yours.

But, for what its worth, here is my experience. I overseeded my back yard a few years ago with a mix of PRye and an improved fescue. But, the Rye came up much faster that fall and wound up shading out and outcompeting most of the fescue so there were areas that were really almost all PRye.

The rest of the story is the part that you might want to consider if it works out the same for you. In the fall it was great. In the winter it was better. And, in the spring it was superb. Came out early. Lush. Dark green. Unfortunately, around here about mid May it would start going down. It really looked almost dead most of the summer. Then, about mid to late September, it would pick back up.

I wound up replacing it with fescue last fall in the back yard.

Now, I also have had some mixed in, maybe five or ten percent, with KGB in my front yard for years and it blends in well with that grass at that ratio.

But, 100% is kind of boom and bust on when it looks good and when it looks bad. At least that is the way it was in my climate.

Here is an overhead shot of the back lawn from the 2d floor of the house, showing my TTPR lawn in its frist spring (and some of my 2 1/2 year old's golf clubs. There are still a few thin spots, but last year this was all chickweed, violets and crabgrass.

Later this spring, I will increase the height of the cut to just under 3".

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That ;looks nice.
What happens to it in the summer in VA and can we get a closeup?

Thanks!

Regarding the summer, I don't know yet what will happen... that's the big question. This will be its first summer. I am planning to core aerate in mid may and then again in late August with another overseeding.

Sure, I'll take a close-up.

Looks great so far, but best of luck in summer. Rye is great grass for moist, mild areas - think England - but not well suited to drought or heat. You might consider preemptively applying cornmeal this spring to head off possible fungal problems - if you intend to water enough to try to keep it green.

What was germination like? How long did it take and was the seed expensive?

Thanks, Bill. It was an experiment. Because of all the tall trees, we don't get full sun for very many hours each day, and we stay 5 degrees cooler (or more) as a result. Any suggestions on timing and an application rate for the cornmeal?

Germination of the TTPR was very fast -- about 6 days in our case.

The seed was no more expensive than good blends of TTTF, IIRC.

Don't think for a second the shade is going to make it easier. My KBG in the south experiement has tought me that cool climate grasses want full sun no matter where they are. IF they don't tolerate shade then you're setting yourself up for disease/fungal problems with the grass. Doesn't mean it will die, just means that it's something you will have to deal with. Don't skip the corn meal or other fungicide.

Now with my bentgrass, germination was in 5 days, complete in 10, usable in 30. With easy germination like that, and pretty inexpensive I still maintain that if the grass dies in the hottest part of the summer, say mid july-to sept, then I could either choose to go a month or so with dead grass and have awesome grass the rest of the year by seeding again in mid sept or if the grass were to mysteriously die from something else during say.... May, I could reseed again and have a new lawn there in a week without much effort or expense.... In less time than it takes to treat a disease in the lawn.

So if you get 10 or 11 months of good service out of your PR, then if you lose it, big deal. If it germinated in less than a week, established rapidly and if it had a nice appearance at that time and was less than $2/# then what's the big deal if it dies? Although bent fills in the bare spots on it's own I don't think PR does that.

10 lbs per 1000 sq ft for the cornmeal as a fungicide. If the yard doesn't get much breeze, you may want to apply it every month or so.

Best of luck - you are trying to grow a grass that is only marginally hardy in your region. Maybe you have the perfect microclimate to make it work, but chances are that the summer is going to be pretty brutal on your rye.

I think it is quite an achievement that your plan has worked.Even if something does go awry in the summer, you will know what works for you for 8 months of the year. Now you can home in and fine tune. In the meantime enjoy the view.

Thanks for relating your experiences and tips. I realized going into this that TTPR would be an experiment and that we're on the margin of possiblity and that total failure would be a significant risk, especially over the hottest part of the summer.

If it does fail (some would start this sentence with "When"), then I will have gained something from the experience. I don't have a big lawn area, so it was an experiment worth doing.

Right now, it's great to have a lawn that we can roll around with the kids on, and take off our shoes and run around feel something lush and dense underfoot. If I can't do that in the heat of summer when it's 95 degrees and 80 percent humidity, that might be just fine with me. ;)

I'll give the monthly cornmeal a shot. I assume that ordinary cornmeal does not have a negative effect on germination like CGM, correct?

You won't have a total failure. From Sept through May it will look as good or better than anything you could have. Especially in the spring.

My experience was those other months it will look about as bad as anything you could have. It simply goes brown and dormant. But, experiments are fun and you might have a climate that is enough cooler to minimize or avoid that result. Good luck.

Whatever the case, it would be great if you could keep us posted.

As long as you keep it watered it should be ok during the summer and cut it high too like cool season grasses should be(above 2 1/2 inches).

The TTPR in No. VA experiment continues.

After an April that was cooler and wetter than average, May was very dry (we got 1.4" of rain in May) and warmer than average.

It had been so dry that last Saturday, I broke out the sprinklers on Saturday and gave it a LONG soak, then of course Sunday we had a nice steady rain all day. Figures.
The TTPR had been showing signs of stress from lack of precip, but bounced right back after the soak.

Growth has slowed a bit, but it still needs to be cut every 4-5 days. Anyway, I will try to get some pics this weekend.

Heat is the nemisis. When it gets hot, it goes brown.

Now, maybe you stay enough cooler than my yard did to avoid the dreaded "brown out". But, I'm thinking it more likely just a matter of time.

I battled it 2 or 3 years and just threw in the towel last fall.

But, as I say, good luck. Maybe your climate will let you get it to work.

The ntep trials show that it persists. I still don't understand.

I'm on Zone 7 in Central North Carolina (Raleigh) I'm growing 100% TT Perennial Ryegrass blend in full sun, and a PR, Fine Fescue, Bluegrass, TT Fescue mix in medium shade.

It is June 8th today, and I'm happy to report that the Perennial Ryegrass is doing just fine. I have been watering it every other day in order to keep the turf cool. It's working so far. No signs of Decease at all. In fact, my Kentucky Bluegrass is declining in some area due to Rust infestation.

It's 93f right now, going up to 96f later on. Yesterday was 94f with 61f as a morning low. The grass was fertilized in early May with Scotts Southern Formula (26-2-13 and 2% iron) The Perennial Ryegrass is as dark green as it war in February, still growing. My Bluegrass has lost some of its dark green color.

Anyway, this is the first summer for my PR, and I'm very pleased with the results thus far.

BTW, how do I post pictures?

IF you're going to be posting on a regular basis and want a photo album to store the pics, try photobucket or one of the free hosting sites/.
If it's just a one shot deal, imageshack.us (not .com) doesn't require registration or loging in.

That's hotter there than it is here but it is hot an humid out today. LAst year was the first summer for my KBG and it started to figure out it was summer in late july and Aug but bounced back in the fall.

Thanks.

Normally it does not get this warm during June, specially early in the month - must be Global Warming...

Our Average Temparature in early June is 84f with low 60's as morning lows. July is the hottest month in NC, January being the coldest.

It rained last night for about 40 minutes, much needed. The PR still fine, but it showing some signs of hunger. I'm going to fertilize it on Tuesday, our best chance for rain. Having said that, this is the first time I'm fertilizing the lawn in the summer.

Could you post some more pics (updated one) of you Kentucky Bluegrass?

Here's a picture of my Turf-Type Perennial Ryegrass Blend (low left) 100% Kentucky Bluegrass Blend (to the right) and my neighbor's Tall Fescue (above) not watered - only from rain.

IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb141/auteck/CIMG2227.jpg[/IMG]

What do you think?

[IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb141/auteck/CIMG2227.jpg[/IMG]

The picture is not working, can someone help?

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Awesome!! How did you do that?

Copy/Use the second box, not the third one that says img for this board. Some take one, some take the other. I haven't a clue why.

I didn't do any copy/paste, but I know html, so I took the location in your post and put it into the html img tag:
<img src="http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb141/auteck/CIMG2227.jpg"; />

How's it doing with the warmer weather Drew?

Auteck:

In your picture above are those areas sodded or started from seed? Do you have an irrigation system? As for the Kentucky Bluegrass on the right, I thought you lived in the Raleigh, NC area? Which would be too hot for the KBR to survive the hot summer months? Sorry about the all the questions, but I have been thinking about planting some TTPR this fall. I am in the foothills of NC, and our weather is just as hot as the Raleigh, NC is in the summer.

Time for an update Drew.

Hello sprinks98,

My entire lawn was started from seed almost 2 years ago. I do not have an irrigation system, I use the portable sprinkles which I rotate around the yard.

Yes, I live in Cary, NC, a suburb west of Raleigh. The newer turf-type Kentucky Bluegrass varieties are better adapted to our climate, the old common varieties did not do well in central NC. I currently have 5 different blends of KBG growin in harmony in my front lawn. Many times it's not the heat that kill KBG, it's disease.

Where in the foothills are you located?

Kentucky Bluegrass grows very well in the western part of the state (zone 6) Boone, Sparta, Pine Creek, to name a few. Those cities are perfect sites for growing Kentucky Bluegrass, much better than MANY cities north of NC.

Summers in western NC are VERY mild.

Time for an update Auteck

and
Drew

I can only dream that my lawn looked 1/10th as good as it did in the pictures above. The summer heat and drought has been absolutely BRUTAL on my TTPR. What was once a lush and green lawn is no more. July heat pushed it to the brink, and August drought pushed it over the edge.

I am now at the point of deciding what to overseed with, and whether to extend the TTPR experiment one more year, or give in and seed with TTTF.

quirky, I'll be posting pictures shortly.

drew, I'm in the same boat as you. My PR took a beating in late July, and early August was execution by mother nature in summer style heat waves.

There's probably 5% left PR still standing, and about 20% KBG from previous year.

I'm thinking about overseeding again with PR, but with a different blend - or TTTF just for that area. Amonst TTTF candidates, I'm looking at Heat Tolerant Blue by Scotts, Southern Gold Plus by TurfSeed, or Rebel Extend. Can anyone recommend a good fescue blend? (very fine bladed and dark green like bluegrass or very close to it)

The other option is to overseed again with KBG and wait 6 months before the ground is fully covered.

I can't decide. I almost forgot, there's one more option: A4 Bentgrass! What's stoping me from going forward with it is the maintenance associated with, the lighter green color compare to KBG, and the millions of seeds it produces that are going to germinate and can potentially make its way to my KBG lawn.

I'd like your opinions, thanks.

I've got about 20 lbs of perennial rye that I just got and decided that I'm not going to use. Does anybody want it? I'll make you a killer deal on it.

I don't see what the big deal is if you go a couple months each year with dead grass, especially if it was easy to care for the rest of the year.

Drew any new pictures for us? Sure would like to see how the PR is doing.

Yeah, send us some photos. I'm thinking about going with PR this Fall too, but the typical summer heat in the Tar Heel state has me afraid to do so.

I too want to try TTPR. In fact I have a bag in the garage for this fall. But, I'm going to overseed this fall with a 50/50 mix of TTPR and TTTF/KBG. I've just seen too many pictures and existing sod of rye mixes that I have to try it.

Wow, I was surprised to see this thread still alive.

Here's the recap on what happened last year:

The 2007 June-July-August heat and drought combined with a vacation basically killed the TTPR after it had been fantastic in the fall and spring, so when I was deciding whether to repeat the experiment by overseeding (really starting over) in year 2, I decided to change to the more drought/heat tolerant TTTF and try to find some cultivars with a thinner blade and dark green color.

Of course, this spring of 2008 has been plenty wet and not too hot thus far, so any cool season grass would likely be doing very well at the moment, as is the TTTF.

I will try to post some pictures soon. It has been filling in nicely, but is still clearly in year 1. It has a lot of maturing to do.

One thing for certain, the TTPR grew MUCH faster that the current TTTF - I sure do not miss the cutting 3-times a week I had to do last spring.

I now have the annual weeds under control and my current plan is to aerate and overseed again at labor day with some more TTTF.

Last summer demonstrated that TTPR in the transition zone is water dependent, which made it a high-maintenance, and generally poor chooice for the drought last summer.

Drew,
Thanks for the update. I'm in the Richmond area and was thinking of killing off my TTTF and going with PR or KBG. Many of the positive threads I read were early on in the process before the harsh summer. So I was glad to see the updates that ended up saving me a lot of time and trouble. I'll stay with my Falcon TTTF lawn and keep fine tuning it. I'm only in my second year in this new house but so far my lawn looks great. This fall I just need to fertilize more into the winter because my lawn (almost everyone in the neighborhood) turned yellow of the winter almost like zoysia.