One thing to consider is the species of grass that you have in your yard.  Almost every grass has some sort of dormant period.  Many of these go dormant in the summer, so there is not much you can do put paint it green.  We redid our yard in fescue.  It was a mix match of lots of stuff, so I did the textbook returf progam with assistance from UT.  The yard looked great and then in July the grass lost its color and no matter what I did, it still did not look robust.  Finally I found out that the grass goes dormant around late June through July and into August.  Now I just do seasonal fertilizations, no fertilizer in the summer, and mow it.  In the fall I will dethatch and aerate the lawn.  Mother nature provides the water.  I will do an occasional spot spray for weeds.  Once the yard gets established, then the maintenance is minimal.

As for a yard with bad soil and rock, the builders will scrape the lot and remove the top soil.  This leave you with a less than desireable soil structure for a lawn.  You can rebuild your soil by aerating, dethatching the grass, spreading a good soil, and then aerating again.  It may take several applications, but you can reclaim your yard and have a nice lawn.

Themob wrote:

i’ve put a lot of time and effort into it and after about 14 years I finally had some grass left over after the summer. I’ve got a decent amount of grass right now, but next to the driveway where the concrete heats up the surrounding soil nothing survives for the most part. Are they rated, thatched, added additional soil and manure And other organic material to try to build it up and it’s working but it’s taking a lot of blood sweat and city water to keep it going.

 
Just don't let dallisgrass in. That stuff will only die with Roundup, or digging them out. And it spreads like crazy.

MeridianOMRebel wrote:

catfishboy wrote:

It will all be over in November, unless Trump wins.

I guess it'll be over in November, because there's no way in hell Trump "1918 pandemic ended WWII" gets reelected. I won't vote for him nor for Biden, but it's gonna be an absolute blowout.

Well, I will be voting for him. (Trump)  Biden can't find his way out of a room with one door  with a two foot high EXIT sign - with flashing lights.