hi sabine- thanks for your input. i'm not too far from you -- at the far western end of the s.f. valley. how does the dymondia hold up with foot traffic? do you find an increase in bees with the flowers? our dogs complicate the issue. we definitely need something that can withstand some abuse. i know nothing is dog-proof, but some plants withstand more traffic than others. that's one of the things that's tempting with the herniaria glabra -- it seems to be virtually indestructible and is evergreen. we're planning on amending the soil if we go with a non-native.

i think a lot of my questions will get answered this weekend. i've got to visit three nurseries in order to see everything on my list. seeing the plants in real life vs. a posted photo can be pretty different. i just can't wait to see something (anything!) other than dirt!

I'm in the west SFV too, just east of Simi. :) I've been looking at a couple lawn alternative that I can share:

1. UC Verde Buffalo Grass (bred by UC Davis agri for California & Arizona heat) - uses 75% less water! Max height 6", goes dormant in winter.

2. Kikuyu Grass (like in Hawaii) handles full sun thru shade & foot traffic. Doesn't go dormant, handles high heat, can be invasive.

3. FYI- Eco-Lawn - drought tolerant but not good for our area, can't handle the heat in summer plus fragile.

I'm seriously considering Dymondia, like Sabine, though. I think I'm over grass. Lol

love the pics and info about this dreamy dymondia lawn:

http://harmonyinthegarden.com/shades-of-gray-in-a-no-lawn-front-garden/

http://harmonyinthegarden.com/portfolio-pages/lush-layered-lawn-free-los-altos/

hi rosydreams - thanks for your post. i wish i could do buffalo grass. that was our first choice until i learned that it's full sun. blue grama (bouteloua gracillis) is similar to buffalo grass. most things i've read say it's full sun, but i saw something from uc davis that said it would tolerate shade. i need to investigate that more.

http://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/allstars_detail_6.aspx

here's a link that has photos that compare buffalo grass (love it!) and some other natives, including blue grama . also included are a couple of different types of carex. photos were taken under several different watering scenarios. it was nice to see some "real world" results.

http://cesacramento.ucdavis.edu/files/136363.pdf

i love the dymondia lawn, but dont think it would work for me. since sabine's post, i've read that it can only take light traffic and the flowers definitely attract bees. here's what we're seriously considering (herniaria glabra). it doesn't have the tradition lawn look of bunch grasses, but it' s supposed to be nearly indestructible and is evergreen.

http://gardening.about.com/od/gardendesign/ig/Plants-to-Walk-On/Herniaria-glabra-.htm

i'm going to armstrong garden center in thousand oaks, as well as sperling in calabasas and green thumb in canoga park this weekend. between the three of them, they have everything i'm looking at. armstrong also has a great website that compares high water use flowers/plants and gives a low water use comparable flower/plant. it makes visualizing what i'd like to plant in the flower beds a lot easier.

http://www.armstronggarden.com/pages/waterwise-gardening

i look forward to seeing what everyone decides on. i'll post when we make our decision.

Wow, Just glancing at it, I do like that herniaria glabra, especially if it's evergreen. So it doesn't flower hmm? I was thinking that bees don't matter to me, since I've got a lot of bees anyway. I have an extensive garden around my front yard but now it does occur to me that I wouldn't bees underfoot.

Another consideration for me is if it attracts bunnies. I have a rabbits coming down from the hills mowing down my grass and just hanging out. If whatever lawn I pick isn't tasty to bunnies that would be a pro. I'm thinking with your dogs, you haven't got the same issue I do. :)

That is so funny! If the weather holds up, I'll be hitting Green Thumb and Sperling this weekend, those are my local nurseries. I'm in West Hills. I've already visited them both once this week. Perhaps I'll see you there... ;)

I've been to Armstrong in Thousand Oaks a few times too, when I'm out in the Westlake area.

Have you tried Green Arrow Nursery on Sepulveda blvd.? There prices are excellent, though Sperling, to me, has the most interesting selection.

hi rosydreams- i'm in the west hills area all the time -- my mom lives there. i'm in calabasas. i haven't tried green arrow, but i'll check them out. i use sperling usually for reference only because they really know the area and what will grow here. unfortunately, their prices are a bit high for my taste. green thumb is my usual go-to place.

the herniaria does flower (tiny ones), but from what i've read they don't attract bees.

i've started looking at youtube also to see if i can find footage of the kinds of lawn alternatives i'm considering.

Los Angeles 2 · More Info

So I specify drought tolerant groundcovers a bit and Herneria glabra (green carpet) is not in production at normal nurseries like Armstrongs because it is considered a weed..It's a bit invasive.

Carex pansa is a no mow less water grass than normal grass. so may be an option. Attached is a pic of carex pansa and an agave.

For low groundcovers though in high traffic areas there are not many options dymondia does not take high traffic because it has a low repair rate. I like delosperma firespinner for low only 2" groundcover but once again doesn't take high traffic. With dog's I sometimes suggest just giving them range of an area with clumping plants as..we know.. they are drawn to items to do what they do.

hi red berm- thanks for your thoughts. you mentioned that the carex is no-mow, but is it possible for it to be mowed? i like the look of the "textured" lawn, but my concern is that we have rattlesnakes in our area. we've had them in our yard several times over the years. short lawn = safer lawn for our animals. do you have experience with sheep fescue or blue grama? i figure if the sheep fescue can stand up to sheep, it should be able to handle dogs :-) i've seen pics of it mowed and it seems like it'd be okay. i'd have to get used to the bluish tint, but maybe it'd grow on me....

Hi Frances, my dymondia was just planted about 3 months ago. I can't tell you how well it handles foot traffic as we hardly walk on it (its in the front yard). I don't think it is super durable, everything I have read said it handles "light" foot traffic.. I am getting ready to do my back yard next and I do want a lawn back there... a place for dogs to play. I am considering UC Verde grass and I just read about a new turf introduced by High Coutry Gardens called "Dog Tuff"... it supposedly is resistant to damage from dog urine. It is also very drought resistant. I have read it goes dormant and possible for an extended period of time. I will have to find out how long the dormancy lasts in my area. I know UC Verde only goes dormant if there is frost... I guess it never goes dormant along the coast.

hi sabine- i just checked their website and they recommend full sun. i love my trees, but they're making it tough to find groundcover! anyway, here's a link:

http://www.highcountrygardens.com/media/pdf/DogTuffGrass.pdf

The Dymondia is doing well in our yard. Our dogs don't have any bee venom allergies, so it hasn't been a problem. The flat little flowers are very cute in the summer. Although Dymondia is a rampant grower, I have to water a little in the back to prevent burning from dog urine, so I've had some trouble controlling Bermuda grass. In the front I can get away without watering (I'm 2 miles from the ocean) and weeding is minimal.

Do you have to keep Epipens for your dog? That would be horrible! I'd hate to have to maintain a flower-free yard!

today was nursery day. three nurseries, one afternoon to view the plants that we were considering.

plants/groundcovers we crossed off our list:

• yarrow - (doesn't appear to be as tough as we first thought)
• creeping wire vine (meuhlenbecklia axillaris) - (doesn't appear to get as "full" as we thought. seems a bit woody for a lawn alternative.
• rupture wort (aka green carpet) (herniaria glabra) - what we saw looked very spotty in terms of growth.
• blue grama (bouteloua gracilis) - one of my favorites. only reason we're crossing it off is my husband would like to find something that doesn't go dormant if possible.
• elfin thyme/wooly thyme (or other varieties) - these look great (especially liked the wooly thyme), are low to the ground, but seem to be slow growers. also, maybe i'm sensitive to smell, but i'm not sure i'd like the smell of it every time i walk on it.

still on the list:

• sheep fescue (festuca ovina) - this seems to meet all of our criteria: drought-tolerant, good with sun and partial shade, seems to be able to handle traffic. would probably look for "azay" variety which has a greener color than others.

new additions to the list:

• chamomile treneague - this is a deep green, almost spongy-feeling plant. it's not the herbal type of chamomile. it's got a very soft feel and is evergreen. possible downside: smell. i found one website that described its scent as "apple-like"; not to me. it's not particularly unpleasant, but i don't know that it's something i want to smell every time i step foot on it. http://www.perennials.com/plants/chamaemelum-nobile-treneague.html
• dymondia - i'm really questioning this a bit. i had two nurseries tell me that it should be okay with dogs and bees. everything that i've found online says it should be used in low-traffic areas and attracts bees. we both loved the way it looked, though!
• california bentgrass (aka san diego bentgrass, seashore bentgrass) (agrostis pallens) - i found this online while researching another groundcover. this may be the holy grail. it does well in full sun and partial shade. it's drought-tolerant, can handle clay soil, as well as "moderate" to a "great amount" of foot traffic, depending upon the source. it looks like a soft lawn that you can walk upon barefoot. theordore payne foundation's website also says it can stay green year round with some summer irrigation. i'm open to doing some light watering in the summer. i just don't want anything that will require water like a traditional lawn. agrostis pallens is available in both seed and sod (although i haven't checked prices on sod. i'm sure it will be painful...). possible downside: i've read it can be invasive. i think i can live with that if all the other things are true.

http://www.theodorepayne.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Agrostis_pallens

http://www.ssseeds.com/product/Native-Bentgrass-Sod.aspx

it looks like we're really down to two finalists: sheep fescue and the california bentgrass.

sorry for the ridiculously long post!

Just an fyi on bent grass. One of the designers I worked with ordered it from San Fran (through S&S seeds) and installed it in September a couple of years ago. The pic is after one month and then I'll post the two month below as it only lets us post one at time. It was watered and installed correctly. The designer had to contact the company and try to get a refund for the client as it ..as you can see died.. The company mentioned during the process that they were having problems with orders in the LA area because of the heat. Your choice to do what you want but just thought you should know.

This is after two months.

Yarrow is toxic to dogs and thyme goes kind of dormant after it blooms. I'm going into my third year with Dymondia and dogs and haven't had any trouble other than some burning in the hotter months (two squatters and one lifter, all in the 60 lb range). It tolerates doggie foot traffic and a little human foot traffic without a problem. I haven't noticed that the bees are more attracted to the Dymondia flowers than any other flower. They mostly prefer the lavender, buckwheats, sages and thyme. However, no one in my household has bee allergies although DH and his sibs are very bug-phobic

I've had Dymondia for years. I like it. I have flagstone paths through it to keep foot traffic on it to a minimum. The thing about the foot traffic, I think is that the roots on Dymondia in the ground, mature plants, are really thick and fat, like fingers, not threads. The foot traffic compresses soil over time, and the compressed soil is difficult for the thick fat Dymondia roots to handle. Light, sandy soil compresses less easily than clay, so the Dymondia handles foot traffic better in light soil. At least that has been my experience.

In this drought year, you might be better off letting what you have die and have it painted green, because whatever you plant will need considerable water to establish. You can't plant a young xeric plant and not water and expect it to live. It won't. Plants need to get established, needing water to do that, even xeric ones.

thanks for all the input!

@red berm - i'm so disappointed to see those results! my first thought was that perhaps it wasn't watered enough, but you addressed that in your comment. do you think there would be a difference if it were sod? i'm wondering if it would have a better chance if it was already in a grown state vs emerging from seed.

@jxbrown - thank you so much for the info about yarrow! i had gone to an aspca website to check on the toxicity of another plant. somehow the yarrow slipped by me. i really appreciate the catch there. also, great info about the dymondia being able to handle dogs. your dogs are bigger than mine, so that gives me hope. (and my husband will be happy to hear that dymondia's done well with you since it's been his favorite so far!) can i ask what type of soil you have? we don't have an bee allergies here. but our dogs will chase after anything. i just have visions of them getting stung in the mouth and having to go to the vet.

hoovb- you make a good point about dymondia in different soils (ours is clay), so that's something to consider. i figure if we're putting something in the ground (we've been down to dirt for a while), it's going to need water to get established, regardless of what the plant is. i don't think we'll reap the benefits of going drought-tolerant for several months to come.

i appreciate the feedback. it's what i like about this forum. so often it seems that what you read online (or get told by sellers) and what really happens are two different things. all the 'real world' input helps.

I went to see the blue gramma lawn at the Santa Barbara Arboretum and it was looking better with part sun than with full sun to my eyes. They have a small lawn on the north side of a structure and another on the south side. The northern most grass had a border of native iris in bloom and by the afternoon was in shade. I know that the blue gramma there must have had shade for at least part of the afternoon because that iris planting looked much greener and better than the same iris growing elsewhere in full sun. It looks better with some shade for me as well in Sunset 23. So I'm guessing that Blue Gramma can handle some shade from what I saw. The seed is not that expensive if you want to sow a few flats to start your own plugs before summer arrives.

For the bent grass the client actually paid to put it in twice and it died both times. It was full sun but they had shade around the corners so I personally wouldn't chance it. It was sod. It looks patchy in the pics cause that's how it died. It was unfortunate and they put in marathon on the third try.

Look into carex pansa. I posted a pic earlier. It doesn't need mowing and is rather drought tolerant. (not totally but a good amount)

I have fast draining, somewhat sandy soil and I'm two miles to the beach. I've heard that it is more successful closer to the beach than inland, but my only experience has been here. The dymondia was much slower to fill in on the least sunny side of the house. One dymondia virtue is that it is very, very flat. There is no need to mow it ever. There are no dead flowers or seed pods to remove. Even the little yellow daisies are flat against the ground.

We have a neighbor with a beautiful dymondia lawn that she has had for years. Our yard was planted in early spring 2013. I watered it regularly the first year, but I only watered the front yard maybe 4-5 times last year when it was very hot and I saw some signs of stress. Even with regular watering, I do get some burning in the backyard during the hot months where the girls do their thing.

I had a dog who enjoyed catching bees. Her muzzle always smelled like thyme and rosemary and she had a technique that implied she had learned from hard experience, but none of my many other hunting mad pointers and retrievers have or had much interest in bugs. I doubt that your dogs will have a problem with bees. All flowers attract bees and the dymondia isn't particularly floriferous. My yard is full of both flowers and bees and my dogs have no interest. (Birds and lizards are a different story. We had a sad incident today involving a young house finch and a pack of hunting poodles.)

Hi My friend in Lake Balboa (Erin Riley) has a company that does drought tolerant landscape gardens. THey are lovely! Great time to take advantage of the LADWP rebate if you are removing some lawn. Here is a link... https://www.facebook.com/yourHopegarden

thanks for the info, lalkhaddam. i'll check out the link.

i think we're going to wait to plant until maybe september. if we're going to give whatever goes in a fair chance at survival, i think it's best to wait until we're done with regular high temps. (that, and a knee injury that needs healing!) since i last posted, i had a chance to look at a neighbor's dymondia. it is slow to fill in, but seems to be hardy.

i'll check back in periodically.

This thread is AWESOME! I am in So Cal too (zone 9). I too am looking for a lawn substitute that grows low to the ground in full sun, is drought tolerant, dog friendly and can handle sparatic foot traffic. I was strongly considering green carpet as my choice, but this thread has enlightened me to other options. I look forward to reading more about everyone's choices and experiences.

UC Verde buffalograss is a hybrid you may want to consider. At the research and extension center where I volunteer, we test several low water use ground covers and this one looks is a lot like regular grass, but uses much less water. Some types of carex are a problem because they are invasive. Dymondia does well, but I don't know about the foot traffic.

UC Verde Buffalograss

So thankful for this post. I've been narrowing choices myself for DT lawn replacement in the SF Bay area. One of the biggest problems i've run into is many DT plants I've found are poisonous to kids or dogs. The FDA site says Herniaria glabra L. is poisonous, but doesn't state "how bad" it is. Does anyone know?

i wrote in earlier posts that i would revisit this site when i decided what we were going to put in the yard.

the winner is sheep fescue. since my original posts, i've learned there's a cultivar that's particularly tolerant of shade -- quatro. and an upside for me is that it appears to be green rather than the blue blades i had seen in other varieties. i'll be buying seed soon. we're still waiting for cooler temps before we plant. of course, murphy may throw in a monkey wrench with the predicted el nino!

anissa - i did a search on herniaria glabra on the aspca website, but nothing came up. a search on yahoo turned up a study on h. glabra toxicity in rats. i think you're going to have to do some digging for info. maybe contact your vet to see if they have a list

Thank you for the update. Please post again after germination

Very helpful thread! Thank you all for sharing your info. I need a ground cover between flagstones in a shady area in zone 9. We're attempting to remove half our lawn and get a CA DWR turf rebate in the next few months. Anyone with advice on this process is welcome to share!

hi kelbelle- if you're looking for something between pavers, have you checked out stepables for ideas? they're supposedly all plants that will tolerate foot traffic. they were one of the first places i checked out when i started researching.

stepables

I just had our ladwp turf removal application approved. The front yard will be a nice variety of plants. I'm hoping to create more of a meadow in the back.

Does anyone have any sense as to how the caveat on the socalwatersmart site of " Please note that turf, or turf-looking grasses do not qualify even if they are drought-tolerant or California native." actually applies?

We were at a nursery earlier today and saw some Sedge varieties that look interesting but would hate to spend the money and then have the rebate refused for the backyard. Thanks!

Does your instructions on the rebate have a list of approved plants? Some sedge may be on there. They're a big family and some are low water use and some aren't. It should be under the botanical name which is Carex for most landscape varieties.

Found a site that lists some drought tolerant ornamental grasses, including Carex varieties. There are even more than what is listed on this link, so check your plant list.

http://theodorepayne.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Grasses

Unfortunately I can't find a truly specific approved plant list for LADWP.

They have a site are a few carex is on the LADWP site: http://www.ladwp.cafriendlylandscaping.com/. I'm just concerned about this prohibition on "turf-looking grasses."

On the socalwatersmart site it says: "'The SoCal Water$mart Turf Removal Program does not maintain an internal list of approved plants for turf conversion. There is, however, an extensive database of approved plants listed on Bewaterwise.com. Please visit theBeWaterWise California Friendly Gardening Guide to browse a catalog of plants, or visit California Friendly gardening guides for various cities/water agencies. Please note that turf, or turf-looking grasses do not qualify even if they are drought-tolerant or California native."

Seems odd that they are focusing on appearance rather than drought tolerance and water requirements.

Hi Frances A. I wanted to see if you had a follow up on how your lawn is doing. I'm very interested in how the sheep fescue grew in. I'm worried it might be lumpy, since this can be a clumping grass. Is your yard relatively even? Is it also still pretty green or has it changed to a bluish hue? Thank you!

hi there - so we're at the height of summer in southern california with the drought still in full force. during springtime, the sheep fescue looked AMAZING! it was so nice to have green again. the quatro variety of sheep fescue that i planted is definitely more suited to shaded areas. it says it takes full sun, but the sheep fescue in the full sun area is completely yellow/brown. it was doing okay before the summer temps got so high. (once the fescue was established, we reduced the frequency of watering, but increased the time a bit so that it would water more deeply, forcing the roots down deeper. the summer temps have battered it and it seems determined to go dormant (? die?) only in the full sun area. we've been watering it a couple times a week, but have now stopped the regular irrigation in that area because it just seems like a waste).

in terms of the dogs, their favorite areas show wear and tear, but i think that would happen regardless of the type of grass. the sheep fescue doesn't handle dog urine as well as conventional grass, so we've got some yellow "burned" spots. i'll try to post some updated pics in the next couple of weeks.

the bottom line is i think the quatro would be good for a shaded area. it would probably do okay with one, maybe two dogs (we have three, so the grass definitely gets damaged!). when i get some free time, i plan to contact the company i bought seed through to talk to them about the shade vs. sun aspect. i suspect that somewhere down the road we'll probably have to put a more "sun friendly" variety in part of the yard. so final review is kind of 50/50.

This has been a great post to read! I am currently looking at herniaria glabra - green carpet rupturewort for a lawn substitute. I live in Simi Valley. Has anyone used it for that purpose. I'm also looking at dichondra repens. Any recommendations? My back yard is full sun.

hi kjpelletier - i'll be curious to hear how your herniaria glabra does. my husband and i looked at that, but i can't remember why we ended up with the sheep fescue. it may just have been that it's closer to a traditional lawn. my parents had dichondra at the house i grew up in. i don't know if it was dichondra repens, though. it was beautiful, but wasn't subjected to a lot of hardship (dogs, lots of kids running around, etc.). i remember hearing that dichondra was somewhat delicate, but you shouldn't take my word on it because it's been a lot of years since then and i may be confusing it with something else.

i realized i didn't answer Sa Horn's question about whether the fescue "clumps" in appearance. when it's full and long, it has a textured kind of look. we kept it long rather than cutting it short (which i hear can be done). i like the textured look (which Sa Horn calls lumpy ;-) ) it looks like there's movement in it. the color stayed a beautiful green (the shaded parts; full sun got fried.) i'm in the process of corresponding with the seed company to figure out what went wrong. they're tracking down an answer from their supplier. i'll post again when i get some advice from them.

Hernia glabra is a weed. I've had my contractors crews spend days and days weeding newly installed drought tolerant properties just to get rid of it.

Dichondra takes lots of water very very little walking. Slow to repair if walked on.

thanks for the info, red berm.

fescue that you have to water a couple times a week is not a lawn replacement. It's a lawn plain and simple.

Thanks Red Berm. Not quite sure what the issue is with herniaria glabra...as a lawn substitute spreading is important. Why would the newly installed properties want to get rid of it if they bought it for that purpose? Sorry if I seem dense...just trying to understand my options.

absolutely agree nil13. the shaded sheep fescue seems to be okay with limited watering. the issue was the full-sun. it absolutely didn't work.

The newly installed properties don't install hernia glabra. It is a weed that is already on the properties. We install other..non weed. groundcovers..Also you probably won't be able to find a commercially produced version in California..you may find it online but if you can't find it at a nursery it is not a common solution...and a few years ago I called nurseries to find it for a client that really wanted it and the nurseries said they didn't have it. It's invasive. I do over 150 projects a year and have never used it and never seen it used as lawn substitute. If it is used somewhere it's not the california that I visit.

Oh if only dichondra were drought tolerant. It's my favorite ground cover. I still use it around my potted tree roses. It's so soft to touch.

I like the low thymes but you need flagstones paths or step stones because it won't like being stepped on constantly. After it flowers, I cut it low with a mower and feed it. It's pretty with roses and iris and a little more water won't hurt it. But it needs far less than traditional grass. If you want it to fill in faster, you need to mix sand into the soils upper layer. That helps it spread and root faster. Another mistake is watering too little at first. Plant after the worst of the summer heat so it has the entire cool season to settle in. I tried planting in summer once and less than half transplanted well. These were moved from a section I dug out, not plugs or potted thymes. Trying it again in fall, hardly any failed and they grew more rapidly. Giving them flagstones also provides a cool place for the roots to gather additional water.

Thanks Red Berm. However, my landscaper has been able to order 15 flats of it at a nearby nursery...a two day turnaround. Maybe something has changed because it is so drought tolerant (taproot) and is becoming more popular...I dunno. But we'll see how it goes. I'll put up pictures when it is put in and do updates for others who may be interested in using it.

I think it's amazing this thread went on so long with no mention of St Augustine. UC Verde and all the other buffalo and prairie grasses are for full sun. Kikuyu is one of the most invasive imported pest plants short of kudzu. The others mentioned are ground covers that do not repair themselves. Dichondra will die annually from flea beetle. They wipe it out faster than you can diagnose it, but it returns from seed. Fescue, in my opinion should be formally outlawed in CA unless you live west of the 5 in San Diego and Orange counties and west of the 405 in LA. North of the 10 it can be grown on the west slopes of the coastal range, but not in the valleys.

St Augustine is a real turf grass, unlike many of the alternates mentioned. It spreads to repair itself under the dog feet, is very shade tolerant, also sun tolerant, and it will crowd out other grasses when mowed at the mower's highest setting. St Aug comes as pieces of sod on a pallet. Cost is about a dollar per piece covering about 2 square feet. It spreads 10 to 15 feet per year in all directions, so if you don't cover the entire area at one time, it will take over and cover for you. St Aug takes as much water as any turf grass if you want it to remain green. If you stop watering it for more than a month, it might die completely, so it differs from other grasses in that regard. But I have revived it from beyond the grave at my my new residence in the Texas Hill Country. St Augustine is considered to be a water hog, but that is pure myth. All grasses need 1 inch of water, once a week, in the hottest heat of summer. This goes for the cool season grasses in the north and the warm season grasses in the south. In Phoenix both bermuda and St Augustine need 1 inch every 4-5 days, but in the rest of the country it only needs it once a week. This time of year in your area you should be watering 1 inch, all at once, every 2-3 weeks. The problem with fescue is it needs water 3x per week in the summer and that dries up your aquifers and lakes.

Not sure why you think you have clay, but you likely don't. I don't recall any brick factories in your area, so I'm skeptical. After 12 years of moderating three lawn forums, fewer than 10 writers really had clay. Your soil might have clay like properties, but those can be fixed. Even real clay can be fixed, but you have to have a good soil test along with a good reading of the soil test before you can fix it. 9 times out of 10 people who think they have clay have no clay at all but they do have fine silt and a salt imbalance (calcium, sodium, magnesium, and potassium). You can't know what the problem is without the chemistry test. A secondary issue causing hard soil is allowing the soil to dry completely such that the beneficial microbes in the soil are depleted and unhealthy. That can be fixed by spraying the soil with any clear shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow that with 1/2 to 1 inch of water and let it go for 3 weeks. At the same time feed the soil with an organic fertilizer like alfalfa pellets, corn meal, soybean meal, or even Milorganite. Compost and/or manure won't do the same thing as the fertilizer. The deep moisture creates a perfect environment for the microbes. The organic fertilizer feeds them. Hard soil is easy to fix. The best soil test in the US is from Logan Labs in Ohio. Yes, it's been tested against all the other labs. Get their $25 test and post the results on the Lawn Care forum and you'll get about $250 worth of free advice from people who know specifically what to apply, when, how much, how often, and where to get the stuff.

If you want to see some alternate grasses in action, visit Descanso Gardens and the Huntington Library in Pasadena.

Likewise, I don't know why Zoysia grass is not mentioned. I have had a seedless Zoysia cultivar for about 20 years. Unlike most of you responding to this thread I live in No. California, where heavy frost turns my Zoysia grass brown. But last winter was warmer than normal and it never went fully dormant.

The reason I mention Zoysia is because of its drought tolerance. Summer before last when water restrictions were 38% of normal in my area, I stopped watering my Zoysia thinking I would let it go. But after a month without water it was still looking pretty good. I eventually decided to save it and made it through the dry season with only occasional water.

it has other good properties. It spreads by underground stolons, not overground like Bermuda grass , and therefore it is self repairing to dog urine and other insults like gophers. Mine tolerates the increasing shade of a Pin Oak in one area. It has a high tolerance for foot traffic. My German Shepherd played daily toss the toy on it without much impact.

@kjpelletier I know this was a while ago, but how did it go with the herniaria glabra? Do you have dogs? I know it's supposed to be good for traffic, but I've been wondering if there are any concerns of it being toxic for dogs if they happen to ingest it.

Hi Jamie - We ended up going with Quatro sheep fescue. It was supposed to handle both shade and sun. In real life, it only handled shade. It seemed to do okay with our dogs. We now have more sun in our yard than before due to a large tree dying and SoCal Edison cutting into our other trees annually due to their proximity to power lines (canopies are thinner than they were pre-Woolsey fire so there's more sunlight). The increased sun finished off the remaining Quatro sheep fescue. I plan to review the posts/links here again to see what might be suited for our yard, given the slightly different conditions from my original planting. We're talking about doing some additional landscaping, so it may be a while before we get to the "lawn". In the meantime, If I see groundcover that I like while I'm driving. I'll pull over, take a pic, identify and research. Best of luck with your search. Please post whatever you decide to plant!

@J Carz Yikes! I skimmed past your "@kjpelletier" at the start of your post when I first read it! Sorry for replying to something not even meant for me!

@frances a I appreciate the update! It's good to know what worked out for you.