What's the problem with the grass? It looks like you have dry, cracked soil, that implies you need a groundcover that can handle drought.

What do you want to do with your yard? Sit outside and enjoy the fresh air, in which case a ground cover would work? Or have kids or dogs running around, in which case you need grass?

And you need to tell us what zone you're in and any details, like difficult conditions (lousy soil?)

Some relatives got relatively nice fake grass in their similar yard. Since it is very shady, it never gets too hot. It is pricey, though.

Depends on your zone. Creeping red fescue can be left as a tufting groundcover. It doesn't need to be fed or watered as much. Navigator 2 is about $180/50lb.I'd improve the soil. My city has a free for small amounts compost pickup site.

Our HOA won’t allow turf unfortunately. When we lay dirt and sod it lasts about 1-1.5 years and gets washed away with rain and the slope. The yard also doesn’t get a lot of shade bc there are huge trees behind the fence.

Pictures with trees behind

Oh yeah and we live in North Texas where it gets up to 115 degrees in the summer. Probably important to note

I don’t see any irritation. No wonder it’s dead. Get some drought tolerant ground cover but you will need to water it in that heat.

Zone 8b

We want the grass to look nice and be maintained. Able to walk/run through even ground. Although we water and do all the upkeep, it lasts about 3 years in this crappy condition of a yard and then we have to start the process all over again. Trying to avoid that cycle if possible. Maybe we’re just SOL with this yard.

If your sod is failing like that in that fairly level yard.... it's a maintenance issue, not the sod. After a year, well maintained sod should be growing in and attaching to the ground. Sod needs to be watered heavily till it gets established, and in hot dry Texas, watered on the regular to not die after it's established. How many times a day were you watering to establish, and how many times a week were you watering to keep it up?

What was your prep process prior to laying sod? Did you break up the ground, lay down a good amount of dirt, then sod? Or covering the ground a bit with dirt, then sod? If the ground is hard packed and dry with just a little good dirt on top, the grass will grow in that little dirt and can't break down into the hard ground layer.

Also, ask what your neighbors are doing. If they are having success with keeping their grass green, they could be of help in suggesting what to do. How long have you been living there? And what does your HOA allow or suggest for ground covers/grass?

Our neighbors have the same issues and one on our street has replaced 5 times. Other neighbors don’t bother with it. Trust me it’s not a maintenance issue. Our yards are slanted and on a hill. Our yard is not close to fairly level. I know it may look like it in pictures. I don’t think we would have this issue if it were level. Our dirt is hard and clay like. Our front is more level and we don’t have an issue. It’s well maintained.

We follow the exact process you described with installation.

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That pic is indeed more sloped than the original ones show. So how many times a day were you watering to get the sod established, and how many times a week were you watering after that? What did you do to prepare the ground before the dirt and sod?

Once upon a time

We have a sprinkler system we used the hose for extra water as well. Watering two-three times a day

Daily after that

How long were the watering sessions, and how long were you watering for 2-3 times a day?

Usually gaps/cracks in the sod like shown in the pics mean it wasn't gettting watered enough. Sod starts to die back at the edges.

Are retaining walls/terraces in your budget?

It's not the slope, it's the shade.

Retaining wall would be our last resort but we can’t afford it right now. Probably the same as a terrace but we haven’t looked into it. We were considering a deck.

If you deck the yard, then you wouldn't have to worry about the dirt below. Probably pricier on the outset.... but save you on water bills and sod replacement in the long run. You need swimming pools worth of water to keep grass green and good there, I can't imagine the water bills are cheap. What size is the yard?

I am no expert, but all I see in your photos is

sod and one puny hose with a sprinkler-like attachment.

Before sod, you need to prepare the ground. I'm in California and our conditions are different, but our gardener brought a couple guys with a machine to sort of till the soil (break it up so not hard dry clay which is what we have), amend it with whatever our soil conditions needed, and then installed proper sprinkler system with valves and a timer and good quality sprinklers. There was also a roller they used to flatten things before laying the sod.

Are you sure that was done in your yard? I can assure you there was never any hand watering done in our yard because the irrigation system was set up before hand.

There are lots of slopes with grass on them (steeper than yours). I don't think the slope itself is your problem.

Yes that’s what the photos show but if you read my posts I told my story of how we did it. Also stated the dirt on top in the first pictures is recently after foundation work and they put the extra dirt to try to build it up. We haven’t started working on it yet. Thanks everyone.

Best Grass Seed for Texas (outsidepride.com) Creeping red fescue I listed earlier won't like your heat.