Now I'm in MD. My sunny-ish backyard, which is a mixture of older fescues and a bit of KBG, looks GREAT. My front lawn, which is in high shade and part shade (but not dense--those are flower beds), does NOT look good. At all. It's been overseeded with fine fescue almost every year we've been here, and it either doesn't make the winter or it fries over the summer. I literally have more green from moss than from grass. And any bare spots go bare again within a few months.

What the heck am I doing to the fine fescue to make it so unhappy? In the back yard, my tall fescue gleefully fills in holes--like it's not supposed to do--such as where the septic system access was dug, beating down competing weeds to do it. I got tired of my husband abusing the lawn and I took over all lawn care, and it's already pretty awesome again. My front lawn is just plain sad where the tall fescue can't grow. (It looks pretty darned good where it can make it, too.)

It seems like I can get any variety of grass to work except fine fescue. Anyone got any hints? Like I said, the shade is not THAT dense. I just want it to work right where the tall fescue gives up.

Having grown up with St. Augustine (and still considering other turfgrasses a pale imitation--sorry KGB lovers), I'm not at all adverse to a coarse leaf texture. I just want something dense.

I rarely irrigate the yard. My lawn is an acre in size, and there's no irrigation system and only one spigot, so hauling hoses is a nightmare, but I'm getting an irrigation box this year and a second spigot, so that can change.

Have you tried to identify what sort of grass you have in your front yard... If you have Perennial Rye - it will prevent other grasses from germinating properly.... which might explain the Fine Fescue's lack of success...

Thanks

Over the last four years, my husband was the main yard person. I just handled overseeding. I got tired of him killing the grass, so now I'm doing all the yard work, and he gets to dig stumps. :-P He *was fertilizing haphazardly about once a year. He'd mow, AT MOST, once every other week, but if it rained on the weekend, he'd skip that week. He managed to kill off big swaths of the backyard, and that's when I had enough.

Now that I'm in control, I'm doing MAJOR rehabbing. He spread some Pre-emergent + Fertilizer in mid-March for me--and missed a huge section of lawn, which is now covered in crabgrass. So that was the last time he touched the yard. But most of the front yard wasn't part of what he missed, and we've never had much crabgrass there, anyway. (Actually, we have other annual weeds that had already reached seedheads by mid-March and the grass got its first mowing, so we really should have started March 1.)

I fertilized again 4 weeks later with a weed & feed-type product. Normally, I'd wait at least 6 weeks, but there were stripes of missed areas everywhere, and the grass was still not as vigorous as I'd like to see given how long it had been growing.

We had one brief dry spell, and I supplemented water in the front where there are so many tree roots because the grass was getting quite wilty.

I really need to hit everything again with a weed-b-gone product (without fertilizer) this weekend. Then I'm going to wait until June 1st, which is the last time you can fertilize around here before summer, and use a final weed & feed-type application.

Already, grass I didn't know I had is really spreading out. I think that poor mowing, fertilization, and watering practices were really making the grass struggle under there. So DH will be shifted to trimming dead branches and removing trees when the digging is done, and I'll stay on yard duty and get it done right.

I think I have SOME perennial rye, but it's near the house, which gets more sun and stays pretty thick. I get good germination every year, and the grass makes it to winter fine but mostly disappears in spring. (Which was when DH took over...hmmmm....)

When I overseeded in the past, I've used a deep shade mix from a big box store. I then applied Starter fertilizer. I keep everything very moist until first mow, then watered less frequently but still regularly.

This year, I'm planning on using Outside Pride's Combat Extreme transition zone mix at 80% with poa supina at 20% in the shady areas and 50% Combat Extreme and 50% Supreme KBG.

I want to stop overseeding EVERY YEAR. So I'm looking to add enough running grasses to self-repair small holes.

I mulch everything right now....

My entire schedule looks like this:
Mid-March: Pre-emergent + fert

Early April: Realized husband missed neglected strip 10-30' wide and 250' long. Crabgrass already starting, so overseeded with cheapo seed and fertilized.

Mid-April: Weed + Feed on main area

End of April: Weed + Feed on neglected strip, Weed-b-gone main area

Early May: Apply grub killer, because the grubs are terrible this year. After it's used up, I'm switching to Milky Spore.

Mid-May: Lime the most acidic and unhappy sections. Weed-be-gone anything left standing.

Early June: Last fertilizer--something like Scott's Summerguard.

Mid-June: Try the baby soap trick.

Early July: Check out for any need for weed-be-gone

Early August: Check out any need for weed-be-gone

Mid-August: Baby shampoo.

Early Sept (earlier than before): Overseed. Apply starter fertilizer.

Mid-October: Fertilize with something like Scott's Winterguard.

I have to stop mulching around mid-October because of the leaves. From then through Thanksgiving, I mow and bag, then I compost the leaves to use in the gardens.

Next year, I plan on only 4 fertilizations. I'll apply a stronger stand-along preemergent in late Feb, then fert in mid-March and mid-May, then early Sept and mid-to-late Oct.

There is no way that I will ever apply organic compost instead of fertilizer to this size of yard. It's just not happening. EVER.