I know the topic of grass has come up multiple times, but rather than fish out an old thread thought I'd start a new one.

So our grass in the backyard did revive this spring - I am amazed as I really thought it was dead and gone last year! It's still rather patchy/clumpy looking, though. We are cutting down the amount of grass area as it's just too much work and money to try to keep it alive and looking nice. I'm planning on adding more garden beds to current grassy areas that get the most sun/heat, since they have been the most troublesome to keep the grass from going dormant as soon as summer heat hits.

What we'd also like to do with the remaining grass area is to overseed with a more drought and cold tolerant type of grass. I have no idea what currently is in the yard, but I suspect it's the typical Kentucky Blue. I found a variety of seed online at the big box store when I searched for drought tolerant seed that I'm thinking may be a good one to use - but would love some opinions about it. I'd much rather go with something I can get locally in a store, than to purchase online. It's called MasterGreen Tall Fescue with micro Clover. Here is the description about the mix:

"the mixtures have been formulated to comply with the most demanding professional usage and our mixtures are used for many projects including sports fields, parks and residential areas. The selected varieties will not only establish quickly and have good wear tolerance, but they are also naturally low growing with high levels of disease resistance. Helping to ensure that future maintenance costs are kept to the minimum.

Tall fescue is a very fine-leafed, dense and drought, shade and cold tolerant grass. It is a dense dark green turf
Micro-clover mixed with the grasses grows around the grass plants and feeds them nitrogen, the nitrogen continues to be released into the soil during the growing season, the nitrogen is therefore available when and where it is needed, for turf, micro-clover is the perfect permanent slow release N-fertilizer.

Additionally micro-clover is an aggressive species, filling in gaps quickly, it competes well with weeds, thus reducing the need for herbicides, herbicides should even be avoided as they may harm the micro-clover."

Do you think this variety would play nice with our current grass? Really don't want to have to do all the work involved to get rid of the grass we have and prepare all the sod for new seeding, so got to be able to overseed what we already have. Seems like now would be a good time to do this.

Also, the description doesn't say anything about if it does well in full sun, which is most of our yard. So what we need/want is a grass that needs minimal water and mowing, stays green most of late spring and through the summer, and will survive zone 5 winters and mile high elevation. I'm open to non-grass or prairie alternative as well (alive, not fake), as long as it's green and non-fussy.

Marj