Help for a dying lawn?

1st check with your local hardware store. Asked them about Scott's Turf Builder, for your area. You might also try a weed and seed combination.

In spring you might try a seed combination for sun shade or a soil mix ( i.e. clay sand etc.) depending on your location.

Good luck

CAV

Depending on where you live; Fall is the perfect time to aerate and then overseed assuming fescue. This allows the seeds to get a start and then in the spring put out the preventive measures. Bermuda will be going dormant so if the weeds live... get some exercise and pull them and or dig them out. :)

Miracle grow

First rake out all the thatch. Dried grass that settles at the base and chokes the lawn. Use a slow release weed and feed over the winter. Slowly kills weeds and seeds but feeds the lawn to strengthen it.

Much alike the saying: There is no such thing as a Problem Child without a Problem Adult the Child is Mimicking, There is no such thing as a Dying Lawn.

Instead You have Dying Soil with High PH. Only a Fool tries to mix anything good with acid. From your details It is already too acidic for anything but Weeds and Stones to grow. You can pour a Quarter Million dollars of Honey and Pepto Bismol on that garbage soil by the Metric Ton and not improve that soil is my point. Thus, the first thing you put on that lawn is a Hoe. After that you may need to add a Shovel.

Phase One: Prepare for facing the facts...

As you want to strip that High PH garbage soil away from the Lower PH before winter snow and rain ruin all layers of the Soil by dispersion of diluted acids to the lower sedimentary rock, clays and water table, Removal is in Phases.

Weeds have longer roots and higher ph tolerance than grass.

If a weed grows long roots, Ph is too bad: Period.

Phase Two...

You can keep that soil, that you strip away, for high acid plants, in Terrariums and in Terra Cotta or Cement pots, or for sprinkling around some bushes, but It certainly is not good soils for Grass, Roses or anything Sensitive to PH.

It all needs several Baths. If you have a Lake or Brook nearby, it is okay soil, you bathe it in a bucket with a few holes in the bottom and can save it, but if you have no lake it is a long haul of alot of soil to a lake.

Phase Three and Onward...

Anyway, after you strip away at least 2 inches of that top soil, test the PH of that level. If it is yet bad, you gotta keep digging until you get either:

A. All of that High PH Garbage away from anything you want to survive.

B. To the clay level.

C. Oil! And you Move with the revenues like the Beverly Hillbillies did.

Eventually you get to A and/or B. Rarely does C occur.

Phase Four...

After you Isolate that Soil, then you can:

1. Apply a Thin Layer of Manure, then Topsoil to the Low PH Areas you just dug up.

2. Always keep a reserve of Manure for Fertilizing anything that does not survive: Water diets only, by mixing manure with water as a Specialty Minerals Drink: Diarrhea Daiquiri for Plants and/or Inlaws you do not like.

3. Over time, with Lime or Cocoa Beans you can treat that High PH Soil enough to blend it together with Manures in the Diarrhea Daiquiri for reintegrating but until you buy 20× the weight of that soils in manures, no, it is bad soil until it produces a Cucumber that does not give you gas or make you burp. And now and again, especially if you want your neighbors to avoid you, you may want to wave your finger at the bad soil pile, saying: 'Bad Soil, BAD Soil' and try to wish it to the Cornfield like the kid in Twilight Zone.

4. As In most cases that soil is really good for Use in Concrete Hollows, (as filling in the hollows on projects like Concrete Steps, Wide Brick Walls, and other Foundationals like beneath Pavements and walks where you do not want anything to grow anyway) you can sometimes Sell it to Masons, Civil Engineers, or Contractors, Unless you plan to replace your own Walks, or place a pavement or install concrete steps anytime soon.

5. Sometimes Bad soil can grow moss, if it yet can, you can use that Moss as a Fertilizer on the Good Soil, or even on a 'Green Roof' Project.

6. Next year see if the pile can grow any vegetables, like: Potatoes high in Bismuth. Or other Root Plants like Carrots or Turnips. If it can grow Potatoes, let the Potatoes grow and rot in the soil and test the PH in 2020. I do not recommend eating anything from that soil until that PH is lower. Feed it to rats.

cow manure you can get it in bags at Lowes,Home Depot,local nurseries

First, do a soil test, then apply pelletized lime, as needed, using a drop spreader. Lime with bring your pH up and reduce your weed colony...