my lawn needs help

could some one help me, i wanted my back garden lawning because our dog is old and cant walk very far now, one side of our garden had those coloured small stones down on top of a plastic sheet, so i asked some one if they could get me some top soil and put it down for me along with some lawn seed, i removed all the small stones and the plastic sheet, some of the soil was like clay, so i started digging to turn the soil over a few times then left it till they brought the top soil, they brought me 2 ton of soil �£70 i bought the lawn seed (ever green hard wearing) enough to lawn it twice, they put down the soil and lawn seed, after 3 weeks i had to buy more lawn seed because it was patchy when the grass got growing well and i could cut it for the first time it looked bad but thought it would get better as time goes on, 3 months later i had mushrooms growing in the soil, but the grass always looked bad after i cut it then we had 3 days of rain when i cut the lawn after all this rain there was alot of black patches even the base of the grass was black, after touching this black stuff it was slippery like oil but did not smell of oil, i cut my lawn again on the 25/09/06 and again there was all this black slimmy stuff and loads of bald patches more than before and all the base of the grass is black it looks a right mess, we cant sit on our lawn because of the state its in, could some one please tell me what this could be and what can i do to put it right, i hope i dont have to re lawn it all over again, please help its doing my head in.

 

there are quite a few things to think about here, a good lawn needs drainage, so does it get waterlogged easily? you might need to topdress with coarse sand, and fork the ground to assist drainage
is it getting enough sunlight ...... or is it totally shaded?
the black slime suggests a disease, .... try http://www.armillatox.co.uk/ , which is not recommended in the uk, but you can check out the website for US recommended rates
there is the possibility [unlikely] that the topsoil was contaminated,
when you sowed the lawn seed did you leave it on the surface, it seems to need that to germinate well, but sometimes it wont take well, try some different seed

[ 29. September 2006, 07:49 AM: Message edited by: Lady Gardener ]