Comment by noelwelsh

I can't speak to what's appropriate in Southern California, but here in the UK I've become a bit advocate of replacing lawns with meadows. The simplest route is to just stop mowing and let whatever comes up after a few years stay there. The hardest is to get rid of all the grass, plant a meadow mix of seeds, and then basically leave it alone. Not only it is better for the environment than lawn, it's dramatically less work as you only need touch the thing a maximum of once a year.