I wonder...how did your lawn turn out? It seems from the picture that more than one thing is wrong. Obviously pH, but also it could be your watering schedule, amount of fertilizer, and mowing. The cheap lime is ok but you might not get great success with it. I live about 60 miles from you and have compact clay as well. I use the fast acting lime every 4-6 weeks (1/2 the recommended values to avoid rain runoff). But it seems because your pH is so low that you aren't watering your grass (usually city water is hard). For watering if you have compacted clay soil, you should make sure to water in the AM (before 9) because it looks like your soil easily dries out. This way you'll give roots access to water in the mid-afternoon during "respiration" which is when most water in the blade is lost. Plus you'll dry out the top surface of the ground to discourage weeds and disease/fungus. Plus the high humidity/dew in the AM lets more of the water get into the ground. Water every 2-3 days during the hot summer months...if you water and your grass is beginning to turn brown, you should have watered the previous day - but never water the lawn everyday. You'll need to water long enough to get down to the root zone (water in the AM and in the PM dig a small hole and see how deep the water went - if it didn't go 2-3" deep, try watering longer until it gets this deep. if you look at the soil after a nice soaking rain, 3-6"+ of soil will be damp). For those bare spots, it's best to use a water-absorbing coated seed - those seeds tend to grow much faster than regular seeds covered in peat moss. You can use these in the middle of summer as long as you water the spots everyday for the first 2-3 weeks. I've seen these seeds germinate in 4 days (Scotts brand). For fertilizer, a balanced fertilizer is best, i.e. 20/20/20. You might have to go to a specialty store for this. Fertilize a little below the recommend settings every 4-6 weeks. Finally, for mowing make sure you set your mower as high as possible. That will help keep the top 1" of soil from drying out so soon and help new seedlings grow.

I think John is on to something with his suggestion that you are dealing with Phalaris and not Hakone. If it's Phalaris or "Ribbon Grass," do the best thing possible and plant it with an underground barrier all around it somewhere where you can see early or late light through its foliage. I just sheared my ribbon grass to the ground about 2 weeks ago and there is already 10 inches of fresh new foliage standing. What fun as long as you keep the stuff from spreading throughout the garden! I love that it can (and really should) be shorn mid-summer for a fresh push of fine foliage.

@J Gil Organic Well no, that's no right, tillering does not constitute spreading, you still have just one plant. Grasses that spread, like KBG or Bermuda, do so by rhizomes and pop up a new plant here and there, filling in empty areas. Fescue does not do that. Right now it is an awful time to seed in NC, you'll just be growing crabgrass. And whatever survives will be killed by the heat. Tall fescue is overseeded at 4lbs/ksf. Even when mixed with KBG at 90/10, you're still at around 4lbs. But we're talking about seeding bare dirt here, so it should be more like 8lbs/ksf. You're about 6lbs short. I looked at your profile and you have a picture that says :" Using weed & feed on your lawn? Active ingredient glyphosate."probably carcinogenic". EPA". Can you name one weed and feed product with glyphosate in it? Because glyphosate aka Roundup will wipe out your entire lawn, so it makes no sense to put that in a weed and feed product. Excuse my bluntness, but you dish out so much misinformation that I can't help but doubt your claims of being a lawn care professional for 10 years. And if it is true, then I feel sorry for your customers.

Uh, you don't get a 2-4 ft high, long flowering colorful shrub./groundcover by just dropping seed about. For a perennial that's always lovely in a semi wooded area, Geranium macrorrhizum, Big Root Geranium, as a great go-to plant. For the late sun areas, look at G. 'Biokovo' or 'Karmina', both of which like more sun that the Big Root. You buy or get the plants or rhizomes from somewhere. Plant them roughly 18 inches apart. Keep the area weeded (and mulched if you can), and it will fill in but never be invasive in a season or two. There are many, many perennials and some shrubs that would like the conditions you describe, some deer resistant, some not.