Originally Posted by
Abeo
I took down a spruce last year, and had 5+ inches of needles in the ground under it (about a 10 ft diameter), zero grass growing. What I did was rake down as far as I could until I got to something that resembled dirt, seeded (and raked the seeds into the first half inch of dirt), then watered consistently. The grass sprouted slowly, but once it took, I used some starter fertilizer on it and kept it watered. It grew in great.
No sod, no topsoil added, no lime.
I also overseeded the rest of the lawn, and fertilized and watered after the new grass had grown. Using the same seed to overseed, the lawn looks uniform and has much less weeds in it now. I think the key point in all of this was being consistent with watering.