Hi Scott--

I do not recognize that type of lawn, bit it looks like it is severely thirsty.

Do you have any type of irrigation?

I also notice a lot of shade from your house. How many hours does your lawn have full sunlight?

Below is a pic of my old house ( I have recently built a new home and waiting to install new sod). This lawn is centipede and had plenty of sun and I watered each zone 3 times a week.

Here are the OP's pictures

{{gwi:86178}}

Yes, we have some better suggestions. Never use a chemical fertilizer early in the spring. If you feel like you must be spreading something on the lawn, try a preemergent herbicide. Perhaps a better option would be an organic fertilizer. If you want to apply a chemical fertilizer, do it no sooner than after you mow real grass for the second time. A better time is to wait until the initial flush of new spring growth is finished. That could be a full month after you start mowing.

It looks like your lawn is a mix of fescue and Kentucky bluegrass. Fescue remains green in the winter while KBG browns out in dormancy. It will all return to green soon. The fescue will do much better in the shade than KBG. If it is thin in the shade in July, you might want to over seed those areas with more fescue in late August.

Where do you live?
How often do you water?
How high/low do you mow?
How often do you fertilize? What do you use? And when?

Thanks for the responses.

I live in central New Jersey. Most of the backyard gets 5-6 hours of direct sun with the middle of the lawn getting it almost all day. I do have an irrigation system. The last 2 years I've done the Scott's fertilizer process (different bags for different times of the year). I have admittedly fertilized in the heat of summer and have probably over fertilized in the past as well.

I just picked up a bag of Scott's natural lawn food. I'll be putting that down in a few minutes.

In the summer time I water about 3 times a week in the early hours of the morning (4 am).

I mow once a week with a mulching blade. I keep it rather long in comparison to my neighbors. I have never measured.

The back lawn will turn nice and green for a few weeks in late May but tends to go downhill by August.

Thanks for the tip about fescue. Is that the same as the bags of tall fescue I've seen?