Check out using Dymondia in your climate zone. It does great here in zone 9-10 in full sun to very light shade, and is a low-water virtually no-maintenance ground cover. Takes foot traffic, occasional car traffic (we park on it in our driveway area), and never needs mowing.

From your photo it is apparent you are in the valley winter fog. The main reason we plant a lawn is for the summer cooling effect around the house. If this is not an important consideration and for your front yard, foot traffic should not be an issue, you have many choices possible. Al

I would second the recommendation for Dymmondia, particularly if you need/want to be able to walk on it. I also use things like Myoporum parvifolium 'Dwarf Pink Form' as a very fast growing, and also very low growing drought tolerant ground cover, as it only gets 2 to 3 inches tall, is dark green foliaged and densely covers the ground, and doesn't need much irrigation. Other succulent ground covers I like to use would include Sedum palmeri, Sedum rubrotinctum and others, Senecio mandraliscae and S. serpens, Crassula multicava(frost tender but extremely drought tolerant. None of these succulents is really appropriate as walk on ground covers, but work well if you heavily plant and have stepping stones for access. Carex tumulicola and C. pansa are two other turf substitutes I have used that use much less water than turf, but look much like lawn.

OPTIONS:

1. a natural soft "meadow" of drought-tolerant grasses and grasslike plants -- no mowing:

Autumn moor grass (Sesleria autumnalis)
Berkeley sedge (Carex tumulicola)
European meadow sedge (Carex remota)
Meadow moor grass (Sesleria heuffleriana)
 and the below

2. a semi-natural meadow of drought tolerant grasslike plants -- can be mowed and walked on:

California meadow sedge (Carex pansa)
Catlin sedge (Carex texensis)
Valley meadow sedge (Carex praegracilis)

3. green, low groundcover for the "expanse of green"; many choices  including walk-on:

Acaena ÂBlue Haze BLUE HAZE BIDI-BIDI
Arenaria balearica CORSICAN SANDWORT
Carex praegracilis (C. pansa) CALIFORNIA MEADOW SEDGE
Carex subfusca RUSTY SEDGE
Chamaemelum nobile CHAMOMILE
Dymondia margaritacea DYMONDIA
Erodium reichardii CRANESBILL
Herniaria glabra GREEN CARPET
Sagina subulata SCOTCH "MOSS", IRISH "MOSS"
Thymus x citriodorus LEMON THYME
Thymus herba-barona CARAWAY-SCENTED THYME
Thymus polytrichus ÂPink Chintz WILD THYME
Thymus serpyllum CREEPING THYMES

4. blooming groundcover for interest; many choices (not necessarily "walk on")

5. seeded clover, birdÂs-foot trefoil (cheap, quick, easy)

6. interesting plants and plantings such as:

Succulents
Rock garden plantings
"Mediterranean chapparal"

7. Additional or extended hardscaping  patio, courtyard

8. synthetic lawn. Yes -- TodayÂs new versions are not too bad

Joe

Thanks Susi, The Dymondia does look promising here. I'm going to seek out a source. I could probably plant a dymondia corridor in the "trails" where we instinctively walk. The rest i was thinking of plating really dense with succulents. I saw these pics and really liked the layout. I'm wondering if i could repoduce the same layout. I know i'd have to substitute some plants (king palms, Agave Attenuata, looks like an aloe barbarae) since those aren't permanent plants here. Maybe i could use Aloe Dichotoma, or Agave Attenata? And the queens would take the place of the palms.

http://www.rogersgardensvote.com/garden/entries/
(The Rob Nelson entry from Hungtington Beach, Skoropada from Aliso Viejo, Keller from Costa Mesa, and Duda from Rossmoor.) I already have Aloe Marlothii, Aloe Dichotoma, Aloe Broomi, Aloe Arborescens, Aloe Striata, Aloe Saponaria, Agave Desmettiana Variegata, Agave Paryii, Agave "Sharkskin" and Yucca Guatemalensis to work with.

Bahia, thanks for the succulent suggestions. I am already testing out sedum rubrotinctum, but sedum palmeri i will look for. Senecio mandraliscae is one i've had my eye on, mostly for it's blue color.

Calistoga, the front lawn is really very small. When the queen palms have a complete canopy, they will shade 80-90% of what is now lawn so the cooling effect isn't something we're tring to keep the lawn for. And you have a good eye! yes, i'm north of Fresno.

Mixing aloes with other succulents sounds like a great idea. I highly recommend Debra Lee Baldwin's beautiful book, Designing with Succulents, for inspiring ideas. I'm doing a very low water front garden with lots of succulents, and what I've learned since I started planting it 2 years ago is that I want to use fewer different succulents with more plants of each kind of succulent. It was getting too spotty looking for my taste because I had basically planted 1 of everything I could get my hands on to start with. I've also found that some sedums are much more drought-tolerant than others, and also that they grow much faster than I was expecting.

Good luck!

This site is always worth a look

Here is a link that might be useful: steppables