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Shade does affect the grass in many ways, causing bare spots on the lawn where it is not getting enough sun. It can be a huge factor when it comes to taking care of your lawn. The type of grass that you have will take part in how much shade it can handle! Southern grass types are okay to withstand little to no shade while northern grass types, like what you would see in New Jersey, do best when there is some shade as long as it gets at least 4 hours of dappled sunlight/partial shade. Lawns can be tricky because they need sunlight to survive, but too much can kill them so shade can be a good thing. You don’t want too much shade because it can cause bare spots in the areas that are not getting enough sun, so it’s necessary to check your surroundings and make any adjustments as needed. Some of those adjustments might include trimming your trees and shrubs down or getting a fence that allows sun to peek through. You may also want to mow your grass a bit higher because keeping the grass longer will help prevent things like Redthread or bare patches. You will want to eliminate as much shade as possible but it’s surely not an option to cut your neighbors trees and move their house out of the way, so you will have to work with what you have!
Another important part of keeping your lawn healthy when you have a lot of shade is making sure your lawn is well fed with the nutrients it needs. Winter fertilizer is needed for lawns with shade because it builds up the root system before it goes dormant. Moss can be a problem in shady lawns but you can control it to an extent, by keeping the lawn as healthy as possible and making sure you have a proper watering schedule (overwatering can be an issue when dealing with moss). Doing an aeration and seeding every fall can benefit a shady lawn because it allows the rainwater to go deeper into the dry soil and help excess water drain out. So yes, shade can have a huge effect on your lawn but there are ways to control your lawn if you can’t control the shade!