MN limits you to northern type grasses. These are the fescues, KBG, rye, and bentgrass. Those are in order of popularity. Since you have shade you are limited to fescue. I would start by spraying the lawn and bare soil with shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. That will help water penetrate the surface and deeper into the soil. Next I would apply an organic fertilizer like soybean meal, alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow), corn meal, or corn gluten meal at a rate of 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can follow that up with more in 3 weeks at a rate of 15 pounds per thou. I would start watering deeply and infrequently according to the following. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. Note there is no weed killing in there. The idea is to have something green. I have all those weeds and I really don't care, because it is green. I have the kind of grass that will spread and wipe out the rest of the weeds, but you don't and won't. Let the weeds fill in now, take care of them now, and we can get rid of them before you do the seeding. Now is not a good time to seed. If you want to sod, that is a much more expensive option. Check into the cost of sod for your area and let us know. We can help you prep the soil for sod. Assuming you want to seed it, wait until August for that. Fall is the best time to seed a northern lawn. Doing it in early fall gives you time to evaluate the results and add more seed if you need it. General tips: as long as you have good drainage with no water pooling up, then don't bring in more topsoil or topdressing for anything. You don't need it. Second, never rototill in preparation for grass. That ruins everything.

What kind of grass did you have? What has been your watering regimen? How often and for how long do you water? What is the name of your clover killer? How high/low were you mowing? Have you applied anything else this year?

It may have lost color due to the amount of rain. It looks just like too frequent watering...which also looks like dormancy. When it comes out of dormancy it should look like you remember. Don't jump the gun with fertilizer. Wait until May after the initial flush of new growth. You can spot spray for weeds in April, but no fertilizer. This has been the weirdest winter in South Texas. We had some brutal cold, mid teens, for 2 weekends in a row with 60s in between. Since then it has been in the 70s and low 80s a lot and then back with lows in the high 30s. Usually it is more evened out. In like a lion and out like a lamb is what we really expect here for March. It's been more like a kangaroo. Some of my St Aug is growing but on the north side I may have lost a lot of the progress it made over the past 2 years. 14 is very cold.

Yeah, I can already hear the excuse coming because if I didn't know what happened, I would have pronounced it dormant. due to the location and visual from a distance. Unfortunately, proving that will be almost impossible. Most herbicides can and will burn the lawn if the temperature is above 80-85 when applied and in sunlight (and blanket spraying is not recommended at any time unless the problem is also very wide-spread). You know that now...they should have known that, but, as Sherry noted, they had a timeline and probably a boat payment to make. Spot spraying herbicides later in the evening can be OK if you know your lawn is up to it. But that's only true on established lawns, is very herbicide-dependent, and not something I'd do over a wider area. I did it on my own a few days ago in two tiny areas of less than a square foot to remove a piece of nutsedge and a tiny bit of creeping Charlie that had gotten started in a dormant bit, but I was very careful not to overspray and I was using an herbicide that's not particularly known to cause damage even in heat. The good news. Some of that is going to recover because it's top burn. The blade and crown burned, but from the before shot, the grass very clearly has lots and lots of carbohydrates stored in the roots to use to regrow the crown and blade. That does take a lot of energy, and some time, but keep that watered and it should work. The bad news: These idiots managed to hit this at, quite literally, the worst possible moment on the calendar when carbohydrate reserves in the roots are at their lowest point, so some of it is NOT going to recover. I can't see the grass type at this distance (and I'm pretty visually disabled so have trouble with plant ID even up close sometimes unless the color stands out), but hopefully at least some of it is Kentucky bluegrass. Bluegrass spreads when well-fed, so your Labor Day feeding will encourage that to fill right back in. First, fire them. Or restrict their care to mowing it if they do that. Taking over your own care is very easy if they won't do it right. Second, water. Keep the soil damp to moist for a week or so in the burned area to see where you are, if rainfall doesn't do it. Just moist, not wet or soaked or squishy or puddled or... This is the one case where I'm actually going to recommend shorter, frequent watering. Thirty minutes, every other day? If it works to keep it damp, sure. But just for a week--we do not want to set off a fungal infection in that yet and the lawn is stressed. Cut it off dead after that and resume weekly watering unless... Third, seed. If you're really not seeing recovery when you spread the dead stuff and look down, you might want to reseed. Normally I'd give it longer, but you're on the clock here, and Labor Day is really the outside acceptable date for reseeding (you could re-sod that area much later, however--out to about September 20th or so). If it comes down to that, get back to us. There's a whole rigmarole for that. And for general lawn care if you choose to do it yourself--it's pretty easy--or just dictate what they're going to do in the future (which they usually will disobey because...hey--boat payment). Watering: Weekly, deeply, if rainfall isn't doing it, a full inch at a time in most soils, but there are some exceptions, a very few. That's the general rule, although during very hot periods, you can certainly nudge that down to every 5 days or so and I won't argue. (How do I do it personally? I don't water. My bluegrass lawn is allowed to go dormant and return when rainfall returns, but it's fully mature and healthy enough that this is not a problem). Feeding: Four times yearly (three can be acceptable). Memorial Day, Labor Day, October first, and when the last mow of the year is done, give or take some. The first three can be organic or synthetic, the last has to be synthetic. Either one of the last two is optional as long as the other is done, so a very cold year may end in October, or a year where you're not sure may end with delaying October's feeding but doing the shutdown feeding later in October or early November. For Maryland (and up here in PA), both can almost always get done as even December features green grass these last three decades. Weed and Feed: Never. It does neither job well as the appropriate weeding time is not the correct feeding time. Spot spray weeds, if any, as they appear. Try not to apply synthetic feeding to a damp lawn as it can burn the lawn--which is how Weed and Feed is supposed to be applied. Really, once established and healthy, lawns are mostly butt work. You sit and look at it because it mostly does its own thing. Those two weeds are the only two I've sprayed all summer, and they're only there because the lawn is partially dormant and rains just resumed. If I'd ignored them, the sedge would have grown, but the Charlie would get choked out.