The first time Gloria and I learned about Pearl’s Premium was in Farm Show magazine. While we liked what we read, we were a bit skeptical and for good reason…..

We had a couple of challenges with our lawn. The front lawn was spotty and we had a shaded area that we had never been able to grow grass in because it got no sun, period.

We tried all kinds of seeds in that shaded area; everything we could find from mail order catalogues, our local garden center and sod. We even planted zoysia plugs. Nothing would grow.  The seeds never came up, the expensive sod died within 3 months and the zoysia plugs didn’t last long either.

When our new water well was installed in the front yard, the area was left bare. We decided to replant with Pearl’s Premium and also try the shady mix in the shaded area.  

The Pearl’s Premium installed easily; I used the same process I used for everything else I had tried. I raked the area to create a seed bed and put down some pellet lime. I followed the Pearl’s Premium instructions and watered the seed each day for the first 3 weeks and every other day for the last week, unless it rained of course.  

In about a month, the Pearl’s Premium had come up and looked great. It’s so green! And thick! The shade grass is even greener than the other lawn that gets sun! And that’s an area where we’ve never been able to grow grass before.

Before Pearl’s Premium, I was ready to put down artificial grass or some sort of rug; we just couldn’t grow grass in that shady area, but Gloria wouldn’t have it. She wanted real grass or nothing.

The one trouble we ran into was when I hand broadcast some fertilizer 12-12-12 [editor's note: we recommend using organic fertilizers of 10-10-10 or less and always follow spreading instructions] on the Pearl’s Premium. It wasn’t spread out very evenly and it killed the grass in some spots where the fertilizer clumped up. If I had just let it alone it would be perfect.

Wayne, Greenville, MI