Question
I moved to missouri just norht of St.louis about an hour or so. I have purchased a home with a lot of shade almost no sun light gets to the yard I want grass what do I plant? the soil seems to stay moist but solid very hard packed? I put some fertilizer down and applied lime tilled some rough areas and planted some shade mix from walmart but the soil seems to get hard packed  to let much come through water stands after a rain for some time. the tilled areas seem to grow the the gras but the areas I haven't till are really not producing much but mosses and small clusters of grass. I have raked over the top to try to open the soil but doesn't seem to help. I also want to plant vines to grow a living fence around the place what is a fragerant hardy shade vine that grows here? thanks for any help! JARROD

Answer
Hi Jarrod;
Well, man you have problems!
The first thing you need to do is loosen up that soil. Nothing much will grow in hard clay.
Shade is not so much a problem as that clay.
It won't let water get to the roots, and won't let roots push through it.
I would start from scratch, and save myself several years of hard work.
First, to get some more sun on that lawn, you could prune out some of the limbs of those trees, so sun can get to the grass you plant, or maybe even remove some, that just shade the yard, and not the house.
To loosen the soil, ordinarily I recommend tilling in a mixture of bark mulch, humus, and peat moss, but since you put down lime, leave off the peat moss.
Peat moss is to even out the acidity of the soil, and lime adds acid. Too much acid is very bad for grass.You need a good balance.
I mix 4 bags of bark mulch, 2 bags of humus and 1 bag of peat moss.
You will want to put down enough bark mulch and humus to make a half and half mixture with the soil.
Work on making rich soil, and you will not need fertilizers or weed killers. Weeds like poor soil. They will not thrive in rich soil. They will try to come up, but will die out soon. After a couple of years, they won't even come up any more.
Fertilizers do not enrich the soil, they feed the vegetation growing in the soil. If you add fertilizer to soil that has nothing planted, it will just seep through with rains, until it is gone.
I used to spend ,many hours fertilizing, weeding, spraying for insects, and all that back breaking stuff. No more.
I went organic 10 years ago, and life is much easier, and I spend a lot less money.Now I sit and enjoy my lawn and garden, instead of working on it.
The article that got me started recommended using dry molasses, and if you couldn't get that, plain table sugar would do as well.
I put down sugar, because the nurseries here didn't carry dry molasses then. I had a yard full of crabgrass, johnson grass, dandelions, dallis grass, clover, dollar weed, and some others.My next door neighbor did nothing to his yard, hardly even mowed it, and his yard kept the rest of the neighborhood seeded with weeds.
About 2 weeks after I put down the sugar, about half the weeds were gone. In a couple more weeks, there were no weeds showing.I did not fertilize that spring, and I put down sugar again in the fall, no fertilizer. The next spring, weeds came up, but not as many, in a couple of weeks they were died out.
I haven't seen a weed in my yard for about 8 years, and have not used anything on my lawn but sugar.
I used the dry molasses when it bacame availavble to me, but I frankly think the sugar works better.I just broadcast it by hand.
If you get a blob of it in one spot, it won't burn like if you get too much fertilizer.
I use 1 pound sugar per 250 to 300 sq.ft. of lawn and garden.
The lizards, toads and grass snakes do a much better job of keeping unwanted insects out of my yard, than the insecticides ever did.Earthworms keep it aerated, and that keeps thatch from building up.
Water deeply, to at least 6 inches, so the roots will grow deep, to help prevent heat and cold damage.
Shallow watering makes them come to the surface to get water, and the heat and cold kills them, and they contribute to thatch buildup.
I use baking soda disolved in water for my roses etc, to keep black spot and powdery mildew away. It works better than Fungicide did.
All we do is put down sugar, mow and edge, and water. We have a lush, dark green, thick St. Augustine and Burmuda lawn, and no weeds !!!!!

I don't know anything about the grass seed you mentioned. I sodded in my lawn. Every time I ever tried to plant any kind of seeds, the birds ate them all. I start my flower and vegetable seeds in cold frames, and transplant them to the garden.
Go check out this site. There are a lot more choices for shade than there used to be.
This is the website for the National Gardening Association.
www.garden.com
Check out all the pages there. There are things like information articles, plants, pictures and information, and a zone map.
Do you have a good garden center where you are?
Walmart is good for a lot of things, but I don't think they have degreed nurserymen working for them.
If you don't , call your County Agricultural Extension Agent. They can give you information about grasses that will grow best for you in your conditions and climate.
Missouri is great for bluegrass, and it is gorgeous. I don't know how much shade it will take.
When I smell Blue grass freshly mown, it smells like it would taste delicious. I can see why horses love it.
I don't know if Honeysuckle is evergreen where you are. I am in North Texas, and our winters are much milder, so it is evergreen here, and it blooms from spring to late fall, smells wonderful.
Check out the vines in that NGS site I gave you.
I order from them a lot, and have always been very satisfied with my dealings with them.
Honeysickle tends to attract termites, so when they swarm, in the spring, dump a little cedarbark mulch in among the roots. Cedar repels termites, ticks, and fleas, as well as some other insects.I put it around the foundation of our house too.
I have dogs, so I scatter cedar bark mulch all over my lot in the spiring and again in mid summer.It keeps my place free of the critters, and doesn't hurt my livestock(my toads, lezards, and snakes).
I know, advising you to put sugar on your lawn sounds like a raving lunatic. When I first started doing it, my neighbors really hooted at me, until they noticed I didn't work as much as they did, and had a better lawn. Then they came and asked me how to do it. We have a beautiful neighborhood now, except for a few holdouts.Some people are just too stubborn for their own good.
If you want to hear more of my organic program, just write me. I am very glad to share.
I use herbs I grow for cooking, inside my house, and you never see a roach, ant, spider etc.
No insecticides.
Charlotte