Where are you located? What kind of grass did you seed?

Hi , I am in Atlanta, GA and planted tall and red fescue. I was afraid I might do harm by raking or walking on it at this point.

You have about 0 chance of establishing a fescue lawn in June in GA. Fescue is a cool season grass that struggles greatly in the heat. Also you will get every summer weed known to man germinating at the same time. Seeding of cool season grasses in your area would need to be done in October. Or you can sod anytime.

That brings up another point - warm season grasses like Bermuda, St. Augustine, Zoysia are more appropriate for your area. They can withstand heat and drought, where fescue will probably just struggle and die every summer. Have you considered all your options?

I did some research, and fescue kept coming up as good for very shady yards in my area. The stores seem to carry mostly fescue as well. I will definitely look into this further then. I am looking up the grasses you mentioned and seems those would be better after all. Arrgh.

And just so you know, grass seed does not need to be buried - it just has to come into contact with the soil and remain moist for germination.

Ok if your yard is shady, Bermuda is out of the question. St Augustine and Zoysia are fairly shade tolerant, but no grass will thrive in deep shade. Zoysia is a very slow grower, and that's an advantage when it comes to maintenance but a disadvantage when it comes to damage repair. St. Augustine is a very wide-bladed grass. Look into all those to see the pros and cons.

If you get a lot of shade, fescue may make it through ok in the summer with proper irrigation. You still should wait until late September/October to seed it if you go that route, it will give it 6 months to establish before the following summer hits.

How about some pictures of your yard? Do you have pets, kids that will be subjecting the grass to a lot of traffic?

here are a couple of photos. It's a very small yard. Some of the green stuff out there is clover, (another failed endeavor :) It looks like some grass is germinating already, so raking it in is out of the question i suppose. I'll see what happens and start again this fall if its a complete failure. No kids or pets so there is no traffic.

Looks like a tough spot to grow grass. Well, like you said, see what happens. If you can't grow grass maybe you can do some hosta beds along the fence and hardscape the rest.

Thanks for your input, it was very kind of you. Yes, my ideal backyard would be solid concrete haha. The trees are lovely but the cleanup every year is horrendous. But I found it to be too costly right now. Maybe someday... I'll update on the lawn here later on. Thank you again!

A side benefit to that much shade is you should never have crabgrass. It is a sun loving plant. But don't worry, there are plenty of other weeds that will grow. Ok, now you can worry.

Fescue would probably work. St Augustine would work and should provide a self repairing option. St Augustine does creep (self repairing) so it would creep between the cracks in your pavers.

All you need to mow is a string trimmer. I mow a much larger area with a battery powered string trimmer.

dchall_san_antonio I've never seen any crab grass but yeah plenty of other strange weeds. But as Homer Simpson says, “There’s nothing wrong with crabgrass. It just has a bad name, that’s
all. Everyone would love it if it had a cute name like ‘elf grass.'” :)

And I do have a good string trimmer, good to know that's all I need.

FastInk Excellent idea! I never even thought of that.