I'm not an expert on this, however i did seed my own lawn in the back, under
similar conditions - poor soil, and in a shaded area too.

I'd say wait. Mine came up patchy too, but over time it thickened out.
I've had fantastic results this year feeding it more growmore ( altho that
did cause scorching so i no better next time ) but it's starting to become a
proper lawn now... You can always throw some more seed on if you like, by
the sounds of it there's nothing else you need to do!

Dan

"Tony Halmarack" wrote in message
...
My current house was advertised as being without a garden. I've been
making a partially successful effort to change that.

I set out to grass an 8M x 5M hard standing area in front of the house
that was previously slabbed I bought in some "top soil" advertised in
the local paper. It's now laid about 15cm deep on top of a thin layer
of sand, which is covering hardcore.

Not being a knowledgable gardener I've really taken time and trouble
over this job in an effort to get it right but the current state of
the grass is poor. I don't know what the cause of the problem is, so
I've gone in for a lengthy, descriptive post here. Apologies for that.

The new soil was disappointing in quality. It arrived in a dry-ish
granular form that seemed quite friable, but after it was laid and had
been rained on a couple of times it turned into something a lot like
concrete, that is, hard and containing about 50% chunky aggregate.
After some further consideration it appears to be similar to the stuff
that is dug out of footing trenches after the top soil has been
removed

My wife and I had one of our "know better next time" sessions after
which she suggested, perhaps sensibly, that we just scatter grass
seed and hope for the best.

Wanting to improve the odds on a happy outcome I dug up the soil and
riddled it, replacing the stones with some soil from another part of
the property. I then mixed in a couple of large bags of plant
friendly stuff containing a high percentage of peat from B&Q. This
was followed by the raking in of a carefully measured application of
Growmore pellets as suggested on the box of grass seed.
The seed we decided on was "Evergreen, Fine Lawns, without rye grass".

After the first careful application of seeds there were a couple of
rainstorms which may have washed the seed into the low areas, so the
grass came up leaving bald patches. A second application of seeds had
most of the bald patches recovering. By this time the grass, where it
existed was becoming so long it was falling over, so I cut it with a
hover mower. Soon after, there was a week of heavy rain (this is
Scotland) and now it's begun to desaturate there are many saucer sized
small brown or grey dead patches accompanying the few remaining bald
patches.

Any advice on what might be making it so difficult to grow a lawn here
would be deeply appreciated.

Is it likely to be a residue of crass clippings from the first mowing
that caused the small dead areas?

--
Tony Halmarack

Drop the EGG to email me.