As a 1st time homeowner, I am completely ignorant of how to deal with my lawn(s) and have a few issues... I put new hardscape in the front yard, re-did the sprinklers, and laid sod - Dwarf Tall Fescue (Festuca Arundinacea). On the areas that are shaded by a large tree, the grass is growing well (and I'm getting used to my lawnmower). On the part that gets full sun for most of the day, the growth is VERY slow and some parts are thinning. Watering is done every other day for 8 minutes on the shady side and 15 minutes in the sunny area. Another issue is in the backyard where I pulled out some old hardscape, placed sprinklers, and spread seed (same grass as in front). It has been a few months and the grass is coming up acceptably with (as expected) a number of weeds. I've spot treated the weeds to kill them (& gotten a bit of overspray on the surrounding grass). I was intending to get some more seed into these areas but would like to incorporate this with the solution to another problem. I'm not happy with the grading that was done before the seed was spread - there are places that it's easy to trip in! I was wondering if it might be work to go over the lawn with some sort of enriched soil to fill in low spots. It might be ugly for a while but wouldn't my existing grass come up through this thin topping/levelling layer? I could even add more seed at this point to help with the issue of the dead grass from the aforementioned weed treatment. Comments or recommendations?

Fall is the ideal time to re-seed/overseed, but in my opinion they should have overseeded in early spring. The #1 way to prevent weeds is to have thick, healthy turf grass, mowed at 3.5-4 inches. A healthy lawn will block the crabgrass from getting any sun and ultimately smother it. Granted, you still would have had plenty of weeds this summer, it's not like your first overseed in the spring would have magically created a lush lawn, but it would have given you a foundation, so that this fall you could really overseed and by next spring have a thick, healthy lawn. It seems like a waste to put grub control, fertilizer, and per-emergent on sparse lawn. Really, they were just fertilizing the weeds. Timing is very critical on the pre-emergent, especially so with organic corn meal gluten. You need to put it down when the forsythia starts to bloom or the first 3 consecutive 50+ degree days. If they missed that window, it's effectiveness is compromised. Depends when in April they put it down. Should have been down the first week, the latest. If you have that many weeds it would be best to start over completely. You need to really kill all those weed seeds and the only way to do that is to either use roundup all over the lawn or preferable without using chemicals by using a process called Solarization (see link below). You could get started doing all of this right away and be ready by late august for core aeration, overseeding, and most likley lime application, but I would HIGHLY recommend having a soil test done. UConn may have an extension office, I know Umass does and it is cheap and provides PH and all the other key nutrient levels of your lawn. Good Luck Shawn Here is a link that might be useful: Lawn Solarization

Well that was a dud deal. Turns out it had more hours than what was advertised. He had paperwork saying a brand new engine was installed at the 1960 mark and is why i was told 40hrs. The meter had nearly 2000 hrs on it. In anycase i didnt buy it dealer said not to. So back to the drawing board.. Oops sorry I just seen this. Sorry it did not work out, but I knew something was wrong, as a good used one should be more like $15,000 to $18,000

Who laid your sod? All those seams from the sod should not be lined up and should have been laid in a brick pattern. It's not a huge mistake, but the reason you lay it in a brick pattern is to keep the sod pieces from shifting. I would not apply any weed n feed products or pre emergents until your sod has rooted together and you can no longer see the seams in the lawn. Once you start seeing the lawn green up start watering it to keep the soil underneath moist and then you can apply a starter fertilizer or a balanced fertilizer like 10-10-10. You are better off spot spraying the weeds over using a weed n feed product. The weed n feed product don't usually work all that well and cost a lot more. Just be sure not to spray weeds when the temps are over 85F as it may harm your lawn. Once all the seams are gone you can start using the Scott's Turf Builder for the rest of the season. You want to apply 1 lb of Nitrogen every 4-6 weeks, this will help keep the grass healthy and choke out a lot of the weeds.