btw, I made my selections of cultivars. These grasses appear to have a diverse genetic pool with respect to disease resistance. I am hoping they will blend decently as far as leaf texture/blade width and genetic color. According to the data, they will for the most part:

-Bullseye TTTF
-Firecracker LS TTTF
-Midnight KBG
-Alexa KBG
-America KBG
-Rugby II KBG

I have come across this question before, and I have never gotten a concrete answer. I would say they are probably similar scales. For example, genetic color is a 1-9 scale with 9 being "dark green" for all grasses. Dark green isn't really a great measure of color, it is fairly vague, but since it is the ideal for the graders, it should be the same for all grasses.

Regarding your cultivar choices, Bullseye is probably the best TTTF cultivar available today, and Firecracker LS is very nice (I have a small monostand of it). For your KBG, using Midnight, Alexa, and Rugby II is redundant as they are all compact midnights, which are very similar genetically. They are also some of the darkest ones on the market, and might be too different in color over the TTTF. Most TTTF/KBG blends use only one KBG cultivar. Whichever one you choose I would recommend one that is very resistant to disease, especially brown patch, as that is a major disease of TTTF.

tiemco,

What do you think of America? I noticed there were some tradeoffs with it compared to Midnight and Alexa, but is was also better in some ways. It's listed as light green and wide blade width.

I want my blade widths to be in the same ballpark between the two grass species. They don't have to be perfectly uniform, just close on average.

If you were to pick a single Midnight type that is available at one of the dealers you suggested in a previous thread, and that blends well with TTTF and America in terms of blade width and color, and has the disease resitance to brown patch, red thread, snow molds, and drought resistance, what would it be?

I feel like I'm really close here. Almost there...

Also, is there another category of KBG I should pick from (i.e. having one Midnight type, one America type, and one from some other type as well?)

Lawn Hobby,
Where will you be purchasing your selection?

tiemco supplied a list of dealers not too long ago:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lawns/msg0815435813166.html?10

By convention, when planting only KBG, one would select one compact midnight, one compact America, and one compact cultivar to increase genetic diversity. You can also add other types if you wanted such as aggressive, mid atlantic, shamrock, etc. but it isn't necessary. When creating a TTTF/KBG yard the typical arrangement is 2 or 3 TTTF cultivars and one KBG cultivar. The KBG cultivar can be any type, but personally I think compact America's and compacts are the best choices. Compact midnights will work, but I personally don't think it is the best option. You do not need to have a KBG blend of three or more to add to a TTTF/KBG mix, but it's not going to hurt anything. America is an older cultivar, but it has proven itself and is still used today. It is lighter green only when compared to the very dark compact midnights, and it will be fine in a TTTF/KBG mix. Boutique, Bedazzled, Unique, Apollo, Skye, Kingfisher, Showcase, Mallard, and many others will do fine in a mix. If you have to use a compact midnight, most of them are very dark and similar in appearance. Look at the NTEP's, they are usually bunched together in terms of color and turf quality. Granite and Nuchicago, are new ones that are supposed to have good disease tolerance, but they are also very dark, and could affect the lawns appearance negatively. There are a few that aren't as dark such as Four Season, Rugby II, and others that will probably blend better than say Midnight, Alexa II, Nuchicago, and other dark cultivars.

Ok, that's great advice. I feel better now about the direction I'm heading.

Now, I actually didn't realize all the ones I picked were Midnight types. I looked through NTEP and picked the ones that had certain disease resistances, etc. And lo and behold, all of them ended up being compact Midnights except one.

Is there a difference between America and compact America? Hogan's website lists "America". And as I understand it, this grass has a blade width and color similar to Bullseye or FIrecracker LS TTTF...right? It was listed as "wide blade" in one a seed grower's website, but I've also read that it's a narrower blade than Midnight. Which is true? I want a thick-bladed KBG to match the TTTF.

Maybe I should just go with:

Rugby II KBG
America KBG

Bullseye TTTF
Firecracker LS TTTF

Is that reasonable?

Hogan appears to not have Firecracker LS TTTF or America KBG though. They have the other two. I want the most spreading ability of any TTTF on the market today (and yes, I realize it isn't aggressive like KBG). Looks like I'll have to order from two companies.

Compact America is a classification. America falls under that classification but there are many compact Americas. Here is a pretty good site that lists a lot of the cultivars and where they fall. There are two mistakes on it, Prosperity is a compact America, and Boutique I believe is classified as "other".

http://www.sroseed.com/IdeasInPlay/PDF_articles/KentBlueClass.pdf

America did very well in the 1996 NTEP trials, and had good color, not super dark, but in line with TTTF and blade width was near the top of the rankings, again in line with TTTF. Here is the link for the NTEP's with America.

http://www.ntep.org/data/kb95h/kb95h_97-4/kb95h_97-4.pdf

The newest TTTF's are not wide bladed, Bullseye is one of the finest available. From my experience the newest TTTF's are fine, unless they have a lot of space, then the blades are wider, but not unreasonable.

I'm not sure if you can get straight seed or custom blends from these guys but they have everything listed except America. They might be just listing the cultivars so you can look at their tech sheets. I would give them a call to see if they will do custom orders, although their TTTF blend is composed of many top cultivars:

http://www.oligerseed.com/products/lawn-seeds/

Bedazzled would be a good alternative, it is also a compact America. Again the Rugby II isn't necessary, but if you want it in there, then no problem.

As usual, I'll be a bit of a contrarian. Both from my own seedings at home, as well as from viewing of NTEP plots at field days, modern TF cultivars are darker than even the darkest KBs. The TFs still have appreciably wider blades than the bluegrasses. We all have our own tastes, but the freshly mown and healthy TF plots I've studied at Michigan State's turgrass farm have been stunning.

I think "dark" is a subjective term. TF has a different leaf structure than KBG, and reflects light differently. So it's sort of apples to oranges.