I'm a new gardener who landscape designed our new house. We live a few blocks from the beach in So Cal Zone 24 (Western Garden Book). The carex prairie fire (Carex Tenansis I think) is 3 years old. Is it a cool season or warm season plant? I let the area dry out completely before watering, but in summer it really browns out. Does it need to be kept more moist? One of my Master Gardener friends showed me how to dig down 4" to find out how wet the soil is before watering anything, and it gets completely dusty. It used to be gorgeous yellow green and fiery orange ends, flowing like 3' waves of hair down the bank, but now lots of dead clumps. Thanks for info. Oh, and I feed quarterly with humus based fertilizer (Pro Gro or something like that).