Bald spots in lawn.

[Farfetched]

About 30% of my lawn is pretty much dead and not growing back. Whats the best way to fix this. Exact product recommendations would be awesome. Also is it better to tackle this now or in the spring?

[cunninglinguist]

Fall is a great time to grow grass. Lots of moist days and cool temperatures.

Rake up all your thatch and moss. Pull all weeds with a shovel. Pick up all leaves that can block the sun.

Aerate your lawn. Rent the machine or buy one of the manual step on ones.

If your soil is shitty then it needs to be addressed. Why did the grass die? PH level is important. Is the soil constantly flooded making the roots rot? poor drainage?

Spread seeds then agitate it with a rake so it hits the soil.

Call the city and order some fertilizer and spread 1/4 inch layer over. You can also use some good topsoil. I do this to keep the seeds moist and worms happy. It should germinate during the moist Fall.

If you want to be lazy, you can buy Scotts EZ seeds which is seeds with built in mulch to get the seeds started better. It's pricy and I've never used it and it has mixed reviews. Just use any seed that says made for sun and shade or cool weather lawns.

[Puck Luck]

i'm no lawn expert or landscaper but, through much trial and error, i got my grass to grow quite well. Pretty sure this isn't text book way of growing grass but i worked for me. Our house is about 4 years old and when the builders went to lay the sod, i'm almost positive they lay maybe 1/2 inch or less of soil.

One day, i notice one of my neihgbors hired a landscaper and was having soil and sod layed. So i walked up to the landscaper, told him my situation and he came by to have a look. He poked a screwdriver into the backyard and said there's no soil. I need soil. Lots of it.

My front yard gets lots of sun and the grass grew, not great but not too bad. The back gets very limited sun, lots of shade. The back yard grass was thin and sparse. Much of the sod that was layed was dying. By reading all the landscaping/lawn websites, i decided to buy about a yard and a half of bulk top soil fron Artknapps. Roughly 25% sand and 70% soil. I thought thats pretty good. Bit of sand to help drainage and lots of soil cause its full of nutrients. I cut the grass, topped dressed the front and back lawn about 1/4 - 1/2 inches and added some seed, watered daily etc. as i read online, but helped very little. Did that a couple times but still didn't help much.

Got fed up and a year and half ago (spring 2013) i ordered 4 yards of "top dressing blend" soil from Meadows Landscape in pitt meadows http://www.meadowslandscapesupply.com/ had it delivered and dropped on my driveway. Its 65% sand and 35% soil. Thats what they recomended to me. I wheelbarrowed 1 yard to the front and 3 yards to half the back and just burried all the grass that was still alive, raked it around, then got a 2x4 about 5 or 6 feet long, got down on my knees and used the 2x4 like a squeegee and made it smooth and level. That added about an inch to the front and about 2.5 inches to the back. Spread the costco seed and raked it in. Watered daily and prayed. Mowed and ferilized as required and by mid summer, i had lush deep green lawn. The other half of the back where it got the least amout of sun, i put down landscape fabric then covered in woodchips.

This past spring i noticed there were some thin spots on my neighbors lawn. I think he then used the corn gluten weed and feed in the lawn. About a month or so later, all those thin spots had filled in. Looked very thick and lush and nice deep green. I guess that stuff really works. Costs a little more compared to the $12 bag i normally buy. And when the $12 bag of fertilzer claims it doesn't burn lawn, trust me...it can. That bag claims it can cover 4000 sf but i managed to use up the whole bag on just under 1000 sf of lawn. So remember when fertilizing...less is better.

Another small thing i noticed about the Costco bag of grass seed. The blades of grass are a bit wider compared to my neighbors that had layed down sod. Their lawns are a finer blade of grass. The only reason i notice this is, i often stand outside and stare and admire at everyones lawn. Including mine.

This past August, i decided to get rid of the woodchips cause they were getting messy looking and i wasn't liking the look of it so i shoveled and wheel barrowed it all away. I brought in 3 more yard of that sand soil mix, spread it around in what used to be the woodchip area and built up almost 4 inches of soil/sand. I costco seeded it the first week of Sept and its coming along nicely.

So before anything else you do, make sure you have good soil. lots of it.