I'm guessing it's the fescue. Our TTTF (sodded a year ago November) has been putting out those heads the past week and I was worried about the same thing. But I'm sure more educated minds than I will have a better idea.

Wanted catnip and catgrass seeds, I have the following seeds to trade. Yellow coreopsis seeds Mckenzie large seeded Sunflower coral columbine seeds yellow mirabilis seed regular carrot seeds acorn squash seed

oakprairiefarm.com

Hey Ryan. One thing we have learned by looking at thousands of lawn pictures is...don't take the pictures on a sunny day. The contrast is too strong to see the detail we need. Having said that, yours are fine for this question. Where exactly do you live in SoCal? Oildale or Heber? Likely you live somewhere in between, but you get my drift. SoCal covers a lot of mileage where the zones move around as does the microclimate and the soil. I lived in Riverside for 15 years and elsewhere around the area for 16 more. In addition to the living I traveled from Santa Barbara to San Diego quite often and should be able to help if you can be fairly specific. I don't need your nearest cross street, but at least name the town. If you live west of the 5 and south of the Tehachipis, then Marathon II should be fine. If you are east of the 5 and/or inland of the coastal hills, then Marathon II is a water hog and you should consider either St Augustine or bermuda. Since bermuda will not grow in the shade, that leaves St Augustine. St Aug is a coarse bladed grass which will look like crabgrass to you if you are used to the Marathon II. But St Aug behaves much better than crabgrass. I just got this picture from a friend in Phoenix this weekend. It really shows what St Aug looks like in action. He was getting ready to mow... He just sodded that lawn this year. You can see how dense it is in the shade. Like a growing number of us, he's all organic. Here it is after mowing and before edging... Anyway I suspect watering is more your problem than shade. Do you water for 10 minutes every day? That is the general advice you get from the so-called professionals in SoCal. That advice is wrong. Deep and infrequent is the universal mantra for watering a lawn. Generally deep means 1 full inch all at one time. Infrequent means ONCE a MONTH this time of year for most of SoCal west of Mt San Jacinto. You cannot go cold turkey on this watering if you have been watering it every day all winter. What you can do is start to increase the time from 10 minutes to 20 and then back off on the daily part. Watch the grass for signs of stress and then water. The grass will eventually develop deeper and deeper roots which can stand much longer periods without surface water. I have a house on the edge of the Texas desert with parts of the lawn in shade that have not had irrigation water since October of 2011 and the grass looks fine. There are other circumstances in my situation, but the point is if you can develop the deep roots, the grass will not need anything close to daily watering. If you live where the temps get into the 90s in the summer, then you'll be watering once a week, but always 1 inch. If you or your soil has a problem with that, tell us what the issue is and we can likely help with that. Is this yard on the north side of the house? Does water seem to pool up in the area where the grass is not working? Worst case is you modify the shape of your flower beds and add more geraniums.