Repairing splotchy grass

What to do with grass that just won't grow?

Year after year we had grass that just wouldn't grow. We tried sod, grass seed, and sod again. Each year it was patchy, thin, or dead.

So this year we broadened our boarders cutting out large sections of dead grass.

We moved the edging out into the grass. Yard experts taught us to make the edging deep enough to mow over without cutting up the edging. You want the edging about as high as the grass on the grass side and a couple inches lower on the rock or bark side so that you have space for the landscape coverage to sit. We hauled away quite a bit of dirt to make it low enough. However, it really didn't take that long.

We added ground cloth to keep most of the weeds out. Nurseries suggested we keep the section close to the tree uncovered so that nutrients can move down into the soil more easily.

We added bark around the trees in place of decorative rock.

We added more decorative rock in other areas where appropriate.

We didn't adjust the sprinkler heads but kept them as they were. The result were great and we're not worried about getting seed to come up or keeping sod alive. It was so simple I wondered why we didn't think of it before.