I doubt you'll have much luck with grass outcompeting moss in a shady area. Most grass needs some direct sun to survive, much less thrive. You'd be better off embracing the moss or finding some other shade-loving groundcover plant to work with.

Anecdote: I lived on a lot that was shaded with 7 mature trees and the lawn received no direct sunlight. We could not get grass to survive at all; even the stuff advertised for deep shade would require intense babysitting. Most of the time we'd get moderate sprouting, then it would limp along without filling out and whatever came back after winter was sparse and really sad looking. I wish we had just worked with our shade instead of fighting so hard to get a 'normal' lawn. Wasted lots of $$$ on grass seed.

Thank you, debbie and daniell. I appreciate the replies. Actually I scraped off the moss in a few of the spots and planted some good Scotts grass seed. It wasn't the shade or pH causing the problem. The pH is 7.0. The grass grew and the moss has never returned. I'll do the same to all the other areas of the lawn.

I hope it works well! I'm sure your ideas will help others solved similar problems :)

Woohoo! Good luck with the rest of your lawn, hopefully it's lush and green this time next year :)

I've done a lot of research on lawn moss and it seems that you can't kill it. It also seems to be associated with acidic soils and intense shade. I sowed the grass seed as soon as I removed the moss so I guess the new grass simply crowded out any remaining moss and prevented new moss from being established in the same location.