You could go with all zoysia and suffer the tan look in winter. At least it would be a uniform tan look. Or you could go with a more traditional northern grass or grass mix like fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, and/or rye grass. Now is not the time to fix it so you have time to decide. I'm not sure the best way to go with zoysia. If you want the green look all year, then next August is the time to get busy. Generally the process goes like this: kill everything (twice), rake up the dead stuff. level everything perfectly, scatter seed, roll the seed down, and water to germinate the new grass seed. There are a few more details, but that gives you an idea how much work it is. You don't need to aerate or rototill, and you don't need more topsoil or other toppings. By starting in August it gives the grass time to come in and for you to evaluate whether you have any thin spots that need more seed. It might be an optical illusion but you might want to remove soil to bring it all down the the level of the surrounding concrete. If you do that, then the gets done first before all that other stuff by a guy on a tractor with a box blade. That will be the clearing and leveling all at once.

As for greening it up next spring, wait until the grass has completely stopped growing. That might be now. Then fertilize with urea and water it in well. The high blast of nitrogen will be stored in the grass roots waiting for spring to release itself into the top growth.

Does that help?

How much were you watering this past summer? How often and for how long?

Redoing everything is more work than I'm hoping to put in at the moment. Between thick sod and sharing part of the front yard with my neighbor, I'm not sure how it'd turn out either.

Would Ironite work to my advantage here at all? I could experiment with that out front, though I have shut off external water so a sprinkler is out of the question (a soda bottle with holes in the cap however, is not).

Lawn didn't get a whole lot of care this summer. Rain stayed constant enough this year that I didn't use the sprinkler a whole lot on the lawn itself. I don't like watering with rain in the forecast...

Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall.

So while zoysia has a short season on it's own, it sounds like my watering schedule isn't helping it. I'll try to keep a better schedule next year and put out a good spread of ironite at the top of the season.