[Lawn Lad]

Aerate in two or three directions. Light topdressing for a good seed bed. Overseed and mulch (e.g. peat moss, hyrdo mulch, etc.).

With shade the customer has to understand that grass plants will be continually dying off since the grass can't photosynthesize (lack of light) to create any food for itself. Therefore in shady areas they must be committed to seeding regularly to maintain decent turf. If you're planting bunch type grasses (rye/fescue) then they'll never spread like blue grass, creeping bent grass and the such. Therefore where you seed is where you get grass. When it dies off you'll have to reseed and that's it.

Mow it high, water as needed, fertilize lightly, aerate once a year minimum (twice if they'll let you) and plan on seeding regularly. And, they should have lower expectations for the quality of the turf due to the shade. Add into that there is traffic along the walk which carries onto the grass (looks like high traffic area), any standing water reduces the health of the grass. If it's regularly wet or has standing water a surface drain and/or drain tile should be installed.

As for your title to the thread about changing the composition of the soil - you won't change the composition by lightly top dressing one time. Even changing the composition with a full tear out and new install is tough due to the volume of soil you'll need to affect change. You can aerate regularly and top dress regularly to incorporate the more organic soil into the top three inches of the lawn area. But realize that you run the risk over time when you top dress with a different soil type over what you have that you could create a perched water table which will only add to your drainage problems. We've topdressed for a seed bed - but we've avoided trying to "change" the soil composition. It generally involves an excavator to turn the soil to 12" plus, and lots of new material with rototillers. Even then the "experts" say that we're not really changing the soil composition or make up that dramatically - and could be destroying the soil profile while we're at it.