typo there, the lawn is 2 years old and here's the pic.

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Where are you and what kind of grass are you growing?

I'm in Sullivan county new york, zone 5. It's Rye.

I'd say nurse it through the summer with good watering and mowing and reevaluate in the fall. Mow at the highest setting on your mower and water once a week to put a full inch of water at a time. Proper watering and mowing is 90% of the solution. You may find that once you start that, nothing else is needed. Fertilize on Memorial Day and enjoy the summer playing with the kids or whatever. Don't do anything to kill weeds - you should have minimal weeds with the watering and mowing. Then on Labor Day, if the lawn is still not as nice as you would like, get serious about tuning up your grass varieties with some of the new Kentucky bluegrasses. They are extremely dark green.

For the area in deep shade, is the back of the house facing east or west? If not then you might need to do something besides grass in there.

I don't have a lot of experience with rye, but from what I understand, it's a bunch grass that spreads via tillering (rather than rhizomes as KBG does). So if you want to keep rye and want the bare spots to fill in, you will probably need to put some seed down.

From what I've read, rye doesn't do well in heat, so any that you plant now may really struggle this summer since it won't have a lot of time to get established. It germinates quickly, though, so you might get lucky. I'd plan on needing to seed in the fall, though.

As David suggests, KBG might be a good option, also. I'm not sure if there's a particular reason you don't have it now, but it deals with heat somewhat better and fills in spots where it does die off.

Some people use rye even though they need to reseed in the fall because it germinates so quickly that they get a full lawn in a short time even with the die-off.

The back of the house is facing North but gets morning sun for at least 4-5 hours and then late afternoon sun for a couple as well. There is tons of sun on the entire lawn. Might not be enough water as it gets hotter (this is a weekend house so one of my projects now is to figure out the proper watering when I'm not there). I don't care about the weeds, I consider them to be green so they're fine. Is there a suggestion of what to fertilize with and why am I waiting till Memorial Day to apply it?

Eckling211,

I don't know much about rye, but as dchall says about watering and mowing will help. Since it is just a weekend home, re seeding in the fall sounds like more work than you want to put into it. You could mow real low for the last mow of the year, then dormant seed after the ground freezes in the winter with Kentucky Blue Grass.

You can also try looking at the following thread and consider it for a very healthy lawn.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lawns/msg040841374498.html?7

Ekling:

I'm in your neighboring county (Orange County, NY) - only you're a bit colder. I had a perennial rye lawn for many years and loved it with one major issue. While it was dark and lush, I suffered unacceptable winter kill, and PR does not fill in the gaps where it dies (its a bunch grass). Also, the seed vendors somehow forget to tell you that the "perennial" in perennial rye is really 3-5 years in most cases. You have a choice - overseed it pretty heavily yearly or go to a KBG/PR mix. I scalped my PR lawn and went to an elite KBG lawn, but if you're only there on weekends, that may be too high-maintenance for you. If you decide to overseed yearly, the Lesco "Double Eagle" PR is a very nice product and works well. With good watering, I never experienced midsummer brownouts.

So is the suggestion that I change the seed? Poke holes in the entire lawn, lay new seed, i.e. KBG, water heavily? Do I have to put hay down as well to make sure it grows? that's is what I normally do when planting new seed otherwise it just seems to wash away. To do the whole lawn is a killer amount of work. I'm not averse to alot of work, a fun weekend to me is working outside, but putting hay on top is probably not likely,since it would require so much (pretty big lawn). If this is the suggestion, I'll do it.

btw, last weekend I put down about 500 lbs of lime, I hope this helps.

Ekling, no need to use extreme measures, its very simply why your lawn is so poor at this time.
You gave it only a bare amount of soil to put donw roots.
When the soil is so poor, and shallow, excess watering is very easy to come by...a lot of water has no place to go...the soil will only take up so much...then it becomes a liability, it will drown the shallow roots and cause your lawn to brown.

It will take time...but every year, twice a year if you can afford it, layer 1" of good compost over the lawn, then overseed with a quality lawn seed...the best seed you can afford.

In the fall, repeat this...1" of compost, overseed.
In the spring next year....repeat...and the fall, repeat again.

Keep doing this for as long as necessary...but its always a good thing to do every year to keep your lawn in the best shape.

Allow your grass to grow --2 1/2" - 3" is recommended and mow, removing only 1/3 of the blade. Leave the clippings on the lawn...if possible.
Sometimes the warm summer rains will cause the grass to grow faster than you can keep up with it.
Then, its alright to use a bag on the mower or rake the excess. Start a compost pile and throw the clippings in...later to use the compost over the lawn.

High nitrogen lawn fertilizer will green up a lawn and repair to some extent bare or poor growing areas.
Water granular fertilizer in after applications.
The combination compost and fertilizer will help your lawn improve its looks for years and years.