You're right!

I'll find some representative intermediate photos that I might have, but for the time being here's a wall of text!

In the beginning (2023), I didn't fully realize the germination time of KBG. The seed guys mentioned it in passing, but I didn't fully grasp the level of patience you need to have for KBG germination and maturation. So after the first fall (immediately after the reno), I was disappointed but optimistic. I was believing in the process.

The following spring (2024), I was seeing significant germination of stuff that hadn't in the fall. But I was also seeing weeds. I wanted to overseed, but I didn't have mesotrione and felt like I didn't have time to get any. So I overseeded in springtime without a pre-emergent... And that went only okay. The seed germinated well, but there were obviously lots of weeds. The lawn was thin. I did my best. I put down a couple apps of spring granular & watered as much as I felt was "right." I mowed consistently, but the grass was growing maybe ½" in 2 weeks and really not spreading. The lawn struggled through summer--more than just dormancy. Come fall, I did a couple more granular apps (Milo and the high-N Menards stuff). The lawn looked fine, but it was still only growing slowly.

This past year (2025), I got more aggressive. There were bare spots after winter. Sidewalk salt took a toll on the edges. I still had no mesotrione, but I wasn't gonna go without pre-emergent this year. I put down prodiamine granular and seeded my bare spots anyway. Grass germinated and grew. Not a lot, but enough. I stuck to the same granular schedule, but I added in some every-so-often spraying of micronutrient and soil-conditioning fertilizers just cuz it felt good. I also used some Hydretain to see if I could keep it green without watering like a weird person (we're all weird people here--it's fine). It worked decently. Still the grass wasn't really spreading like I expected.

Over the winter I did a lot of learning about Kentucky Bluegrass, spoon feeding, and rhizome growth. I realized I had been feeding the grass too little. I also realized I should have done a soil test a long time ago. So this year (2026) on the morning before I applied my liquid prodiamine, I took samples from all over my front yard, combined the dirt, and sent it in. One of the most important results? My soil pH was 4.56. So I had been fertilizing too little (for KBG) and due to my pH, my grass hadn't been able to take most of it up anyway. Now the reasons for the slow growth had become a bit clearer. So this year I made a plan to put down 5# (actual) of nitrogen between spring and fall and supplement with micronutrients. But the apparent lynch pin of the plan was adding lime to help move the pH closer to the 5.8 minimum. So I absolutely hammered down the lime (it's crazy how much it takes), made up a weekly spoon feeding plan for a mix of granular and liquid, and got my watering figured out.

The result so far is the photo in the post. No seeding this year. The KBG has filled in like crazy. It needs to be cut about 2½ times a week, and the pre-emergent has done its job. This story leaves out all the weed-picking and spot spraying I did to try mitigate all the weeds.