Thanks for all the advice guys! Unfortunately, 2008 was not my great year (it was 2003) - which is why I keep thinking it's nutrient rather than weather / site, however, Platanus is right about there not being enough warmth this year for my warm site stuff (so, naturally, this is the year I plant okra and sweet potatoes...). I might have picked the wrong year to ask this question, but the issue appears to be the same as in previous, warmer years. I have great sun, have had plenty (more than plenty this year) of rain and have a growing season that is a little longer than the place I used to try and grow okra, Massachusetts (now that was a challenge!). I notice that my soil pH is a little lower than the optimal that was reported by the link jean001a provided (thank you for that!) and so I might pursue that. Thanks for all the great advice. I'll follow it and see what I can get. :)

There are possibly two varieties of zoysia that handle shade. They might be the same variety discovered by different researchers - who knows? One is called Shadow Turf. I've seen it growing under a very dense English walnut tree. Here is a pic I took of it. This lawn was blocked by the house to the east, the walnut tree right overhead, and a large tree to the west across the street. If any of it got more than 2 hours of direct sunlight I'd be surprised. It had been installed with 1-inch plugs about 18 months prior. The uneven area in the center of the picture is the only spot where it had not completely filled in. The 1-inch plugs had grown to 12 inch patches but they had not knit together yet. Otherwise the grass was very dense. Even if it had been growing in full sun I would have called it dense. I did an experiment with Shadow Turf and was not thrilled with it. It is just about as aggressive as bermuda and much less tolerant of the heat. I guess it goes dormant in the heat. It certainly does come back, though. In all fairness, the location is isolated and it must get special treatment. I was not home to water as needed so it looked dead during most of our recent 2-year long drought. My wife is going to try to pull it out this year. I'll be reporting on the success of that project later. I forget the name of the other variety of shade tolerant zoysia. I'm thinking it is called Diamond but could be very wrong. It is used on golf courses in the east.

I do see some grass in the picture, but I see more weeds. If you want to grow grass in a heavily shaded area there are a few options. Fine fescues are hardy, relatively low maintenance, and have a lot of shade and traffic tolerance. Poa supina is a lighter green grass, that is very shade tolerance, and once established spreads aggressively and tolerates a lot of traffic. Improved poa trivialis is a medium green grass that spreads, but is very soft, and handles traffic poorly. You won't find these at the big box stores (well some of the fine fescues you will, but not the better cultivars). The better performing fine fescues you can buy online. You can find out which ones do well in your area at the ntep website (www.ntep.org). Before you seed that area you need to kill everything first. Use round up. Round up takes 1-2 weeks, so if you want to seed around Sept. 1, you need to apply round up around August 15th. Don't seed now, the best time for the grasses I mentioned are in the late summer for the Chicago area.

I also looked hard at groundcovers and THANKS castorp for the insght into perrenial peanut which my neighbor is considering. Doesn't sound good in it's "off-season". We decided on dune sunflower. Only appropriate if not walking on it. 2 years ago I planted it and some mimosa. DSunflower won hands down. The mimosa is only just now (2 years) showing itself. I also bought a couple pots of the jasmine because a landscaper rec'd it and later read how slow growing it is (and expensive) so booted that choice. IMO dune sunflower is the best choice. Since these photos were taken the DS has spread fantastically, no irrigation but water a couple times a week in the beginning to get it started. We planted some with and some without cardboard/newspaper weed barrier and it's MUCH better WITH the cardboard or there WILL BE WEEDS popping up. You don't need mulch if you don't use cardboard but then you'll need to spray Round-up with the danger of hitting your dune sunflower (or you'll need to pull weeds. We're thrilled with the results and if I can find current photos I'll post them. BTW there are TWO kinds of dune sunflower: East Coast (lower growing) and West Coast (little taller). We have both because couldn't find more of the East Coast which was planted first along the road. Both are fine, just wanted to inform. Denise P.S. Notice the brown bahia grass in picture 2 vs. how green the established D. sunflower. It greens up with rain but the D. sunflwer is ALWAYS green with no water.