Well your soil PH is really good for any kind of grass except Centipede, as it loves a very acid soil where nothing else will grow. Centipede also has almost no fertlizer requirements other than drag an empty bag around every spring. Centipede also needs fairly large amounts of water. Centipede is called th eLazy man's grass for those who don't really care. I think you see where this is going, Bermuda would be my choice. Ignore the nitrogen test results, they will always be low. Right now there is nothing to do for now as both Bermuda and Centipede should be dormant. IF you choose Bermuda, then when you see it green up about 50% hit with a quality 3-1-2 ratio fertlizer at a rate to apply 1-pound of nitrogen per 1000/ft2, and every 30 to 45 days apply a 39-0-0 Slow release urea fertilizer up till about a month before you expect your first frost. Water only when the Bermuda grass tells you it needs water, about once a week during the growing season. Mow twice a week at 1-inch. Do that and the Centipede will fade away.

Fescue won't do well in north Texas during the summer. Like you, the north side of fence gets no sun half of year plus it slopes down quite a bit which makes it no fun to mow so I ended up building a plant bed the entire length of that fence with about 8-10 feet deep. You have bermuda... they need a lot of sun to thrive so perhaps you should look for more shade tolerant grass. There's a *shade* tolerant bermuda called Tifgrand but it just came out on the market last year and there's not enough information to see just how much more shade tolerant it is. Another option - Zoysia. Fine bladed type probably would blend in with bermuda but it's a little more demanding. Coarse blade zoysia like Palisades, Empire and Jamur are easier to maintain. They look more like fescue, I think. Sometimes described as dwarf st augustine.

Thanks dchall! I've seen you around on all the lawn forums for ages so I know you know your stuff. I based my seeding time on the UGA soil temperature website (http://weather.uga.edu/aemn/cgi-bin/AEMN.pl?site=GAAP&report=st), which says that soil temps for my area for the first two weeks of May averaged between 65-70 degrees from 2-8 inch depths, which seemed warm enough for bermuda. It got unseasonably hot this year in GA and stayed hot. We were in the nineties with regularity by late May. I generally try to time my fertilizer applications with expected rain. We've gotten a fair bit of rain this year (11 inches since May according to the UGA website) and I haven't noticed any burn. I've been trying to decide on the watering issue. I know it would help the lawn, but my husband really hates seeing people run their sprinklers so I don't know if he'll support me on that. I'm a stay at home mom and I do all my lawn maintenance generally during the day the two days a week someone else has my kids so I have to contend with some timing issues as well. Plus we have water restrictions in place. If the HOA didn't demand bermuda in the front yard I'd consider replacing the lawn with something easier but as long as I have to have it up front I might as well try to get it everywhere. My current thought is that if there's not a lot of bermuda in the back yard after I kill off the crabgrass that I may try to slit seed next spring/summer and invest in the hoses and timers and sprinklers needed at that time. I know that for cool-weather grasses you and others generally try to avoid aeration, but I haven't been able to get a sense of whether that applies to warm season grasses like bermuda. If I can avoid aerating again anytime soon, I would prefer that. I did it myself with a rental and it kicked my butt. I only managed to do one pass and I was so exhausted by the end of it that I had to get a neighbor to help my husband put the machine in the car to take back. Thanks for the tip on the phone. I took the pictures on a whim after posting the first post and tried to duck out and get back in before my two year old noticed I was gone. She caught me at the front door, though, and then there was a tantrum because she wanted to be outside too.

If you already have enough grass in your yard for your needs ( especially if its just for looks) , its better to not struggle with growing grass around trees.