Contact you local extension office and get a soil test. Mine was about
$8.00.
They sent me a nice printout telling me exactly what my soil needed to grow
grass.
Weight to area ratio's for fertalizer for example. I was very happy with
the response and have had much better success with my grass. My lawn is
rather shady and amending the soil properly really worked. (properly being
the key word, my yard was very scarcein some of the much needed nutrients)
Hope this helps.
kraM



"Frankenberry" wrote in message
...
I have a small lawn that is shaded on one end. Since I have owned the
house
the shaded part was mostly dirt.

I dug up and turned the soil over and layed sod in this area. I also
turned
over the soil and planted shady grass seed in the area between the
existing
grass and the new sod. I also patched up areas one the grassy side to fill
it in. Within a week or so the grass and sod looked beautiful almost golf
course like.

But now 3 weeks-4 weeks later all the new areas have thinned quite a bit
(sod, patches, seeded areas). The original grassy area looks the same.

I tried fertilizing the lawn 4-5 days ago and so far no difference,
everyday
the lawn looks worse. More dirt less grass.

I have watered it quite a bit and it has rained quite a bit too.

Does anyone have any sugestions why this might be happening and how to fix
it?

Also no one has been on the grass as its a fairly unused lawn.