Hi all,

In December of last year I bought a home in Iowa City. Neither I nor my wife have much experience with lawn care, and this has been a rough year weather-wise, so we're having some problems.

First of all, the south side of the house (which lies between us and the neighbors) is pretty bare. It has been more or less since the thaw. This is probably because water stays there too long when it rains. We have a depressed spot in the front yard near the base of a large tree; this gets a lot of shade, and large puddles form here when it rains. This area is patchy, and the patchiness has spread from that area to other parts of the lawn.

The ground in both spots seems very dry and hard now; it kicks up dust when I push the mower over it.

I've done some reading online and I've got the rough outlines of a plan: I'm thinking the lawn needs to be aerated (should I do that all over, or only in the troubled areas?), then fertilized, reseeded, and periodically watered in the bare spots.

I'm not sure how to best avoid this in the future. I feel like I don't see people in this neighborhood watering their lawns often. The dryness it's exhibiting now makes me think it probably needs some, but obviously that won't help when it floods, which I think is the main cause of the trouble here, though the shade from the tree and the houses probably isn't helping.

Would appreciate your advice. I'm pretty clueless here.