I'm having difficulty trying to figure out what to do with my yard and in what order to do it. I want to ask for advice from the company we used for core aeration last year, but I don't want them to give me whatever answer means the most services/money from them, I want to know what my yard actually needs. (I don't have any particular reason to distrust them, but not enough experience with them to trust them implicitly, either.)
Details:
Current conditions:
Heavily compacted, clay soil with new, lush sod installed on it about three-ish years ago. Yard was deteriorating and had a lot of thatch last year, but wasn't as brown as it is this year. Last year we lightly seeded (mid-summer) and core aerated, once, later in the season. Front yard was 'treated' with milorganite early April this year (not sure if that impacted it or not). Yard is still fairly brown except in the back of the house, presumably because that's where the dogs poo, but I'm also wondering if our grass prefers the shade our house based on the area where the grass is growing best out back. (Coincidence?) I have no idea what type of grass/sod was installed right after our home was built, so I don't know with certainty if it's a shade-loving, sun-loving, or mixture of grasses. Some areas of our lawn are sparsely grassed--no 'holes', just some areas that have very, very short grass that is sparse...you would think it was too sun-baked except that area was often saturated with water after rains last year and this year...maybe poor air circulation to the grass roots? And maybe too much evaporation on hot summer days?
Considerations I've had:
Core aeration
compost/topsoil mix added across entire yard and overseeded
miloorganite (organic fertilizer)
maneur (too risky to humans pets? might burn grass?)
de-thatching
What would you recommend? Please only answer if you are well-qualified in this topic. Not to offend anyone, but I don't want to waste time/money on guesses, I need to get this fixed ASAP.
(If you don't know the answer, but know what I should do to get an unbiased answer, that would be helpful, too!) If you suggest multiple solutions from the above list (or have your own solutions not listed above), please let me know what order I should do it in to be most effective. (For instance, if I should do core aeration and overseeding, which one should I do first and on what schedule....a day apart?...two months apart?....)
NOTE: I am only interested in organic non-'chemical' products...I like to do things in as eco-friendly of a way as possible, so remedies such as 'weed n' feed' are not an option.
THANK YOU for anyone that can help, this is a real problem this year and I'm so sad that our lush, gorgeous lawn has come to this!
(The last picture is of the 'sparsely grassed' area...I think the other three are from the front yard or less-sparse areas of the backyard.)
A couple more pictures:
As you can see, not ALL of the areas of the yard are brown...a couple of these pictures show where there is some lusher, greener areas. (We have irrigation all over our yard, not just in the areas where the green grass is showing.) The two pictures showing greener grass are in the shadier/poopier area of our backyard. All photos are taken right after the lawn was mowed (although that didn't impact the short grass...they were too short to get cut.)
