Just one man's opinion, but I'd pull the bedline out from the trees 6-10' (towards your house). Turn that bit of lawn into "woodland" beds. A quick tangent here...fact of life...trees and lawn grass have very different nutritional/cultural needs and will compete with each other for those needs...one always suffers or loses. Notice how the areas under tress are always mulched to the dripline at better golf courses (Augusta National is a GREAT example). If you pull the bedline in a few feet, remove the lawn, add mulch, the trees will appreciate it...and it'll give you an area to plant with shrubs and groundcovers to visually bridge between the 2 areas (like woodyoak mentions above). I'm down south, so this is a plant palette I'd consider...indica azaleas, oakleaf hydrangea, bottlebrush buckeye, fothergilla, anise, leucothoe (for medium to larger shrubs farther back, behind the tree trunks); hostas, ivy, ferns, maybe some perennials (for front areas near the edge of the lawn)...this is all assuming the areas get a good deal of shade. You'll need to use a palette that works for your zone and microclimatic conditions. Bottom line, you need to soften the egde by visually pushing the trees back and integrating them better into the woods...as it stands, there's no transition - you've got a very stark and hard edge.

If others in your neighborhood grow Bermuda, and it seems to do well there, then yours should too. With lots of sun, tall fescue will also work, which I personally prefer over Bermuda. It's less invasive, stays green all year when healthy, and because it grows long puts down a deeper root system. It also looks really nice when "striped." It's been many years since I researched Bermuda, but my memory tells me that it's pretty difficult to grow from seed, albeit not as hard as Zoysia. Fescue is easy to sow, though I wouldn't do it until the fall. Your plan of cutting short, topdressing, sedding, topdressing sounds viable to me. I would add compost (I like Black Kow) to the topdressing as well. You should also press the seed into the soil. The flat side of a garden rake works fine for relatively small lawns, although you'll want to rent a roller for anything of real size. Good luck.

flora_uk, I can still see ungerminated seeds delightedinco, I tried the Scotts EZ Seed too - it sometimes worked, and it's very convenient to use (I like the built-in spreader on the smaller containers - the gardening newbies this product is aimed at are not going to own seed spreaders or roto-tillers, don't know what kind of soil or fertilizer to use, and have no idea what 5 lbs. per 400 feet looks like when spread. But it is so expensive for what you get). I bought it only because Scotts used to have $5-off discounts on it. Pennington has a similar product as part of their Smart Seed line that's a bit cheaper (but not much), although I wonder why they claim much longer germination times than the Scotts product. There's also Scotts Patch Master which is cheaper and I haven't used yet. I think I'm going to try just regular seed, and watering more often (a real pain here - there's no outside garden hose faucets, so I either need to use big watering buckets or run a hose from an indoor faucet. I have a 50' coiled garden hose with a sink-faucet adapter at one end and a trigger sprayer at the other for that purpose). I have a bag of Vigoro Starter Fertilizer 20-27-5, and have applied quite a bit of new seeding soil (of several varieties depending on location) since the ground is mostly hard clay. I did my best to loosen it with a metal gardening rake before adding a new layer of topsoil. Any recommendations as to what type of grass I should use? I'm near Washington DC, which means both humid 100°F+ in the summer and subfreezing icy winters. The big-box stores around here seem to favor tall fescoe, which is also what the combination seed/mulch/fertilizer products use in this market. I like the bright green color, how fast it grows, and its tolerance for all sorts of bad weather, but not the thin straight grass blades that get matted down like cheap carpeting when walked on. The second most popular here seems to be the generically-labeled "sun and shade mix". The real nurseries have more variety to choose from but also higher prices. I don't want anything that goes dormant or turns yellow or brown in the winter. The side yard is in heavy shade due to closely-spaced houses and lots of old trees, but the backyard (which I'm more concerned about since that's the main socializing area) gets alot of sunlight. I also hear some people say I shouldn't even try to grow from seed during the hot summer. But I'd like to have a lawn by fall if possible, when I plan to have a new renter. I could plant sod - but it's inconvenient given how thirsty the stuff is when new (given the water situation I mentioned earlier) and hard to transport for someone with a small car and a bad back. Any ideas?

Thanks for the link, GGG! I will try Muhly grass again and hope for the best (soil is not too clay-heavy). I also need some container ideas so i might use Fescue in a pot. I did a bit of browsing and came up with this list, which I'm trying to choose from - Natives - -Eragrostis elliottii and/or spectablis (blue and purple love grass) -Panicum virgatum (switch grass) - blue or reddish color -Schizachyrium scoparium "The Blues" (little bluestem) Non-natives - -Calamagrostis "Overdam" (feather reed grass) -Deschampsia "Bronze Veil" (tufted hair grass) -Miscanthus "Morning Light" -Pennisetum alopecuroides "National Arboretum" (black fountain grass) Shorties - -Carex "frosted curls" and -Carex "Lemon Zest" Of these, I can only find some suggestion of invasiveness for Miscanthus, although I'm not sure whether that would be invasive here or not. I dont know of a good supplier in town for grasses, so I will probably order online once I narrow it down (all of this list came from Lazy S's page). If anyone has any feedback on these specific plants (or other suggestions), I'd love to hear.