I'm in the middle of Fl.S Aug. lawn, I mow "highest deck setting" to retard growth from full to new moon phase, of course that means I have to mow twice "sometimes" on the increase of moon, but not often. The lawn gets i inch of H2O a week. No fertilizer in 7 years, Disclaimer>>"Do not try this at home. :)" It's not going to be in better lawn and gardens anytime soon :). but it works for me. If we don't get some rain soon, thats going to be a acre of dead SA :(

Where are you in Cal? If you are in Carmel the answer is different than if you are in Blythe. Generally all you need is enough water to keep the bottom of the sod moist so the roots will knit into the underlying soil. With modern sprinkler systems, this advice changes. With the old style sprinklers you could water 3x per day for 5-10 minutes. With new sprinklers that might flood the entire neighborhood. All you need is enough. You don't need to saturate the soil every time. Keep up the 3x per day for 2 weeks or until you can tug on the sod and nothing comes up. After the sod is knitted down, then you can back off on the frequency and go up on the duration. Ideally you want to provide about 1 inch per week, all at one time. But that is only for the hottest heat of summer. I'm in the Texas desert, but when it was 80 degrees here I was only watering once every 3 weeks for my established sod. Why does that look like two kinds of sod? What kind of sod is it? Hopefully it is St Augustine or Marathon because there is a lot of shade there.

Unless you have REALLY bad water pressure, I think you're overwatering. For the first two weeks or so, you want to water 3x a day, but only about 10-15 minutes each. Then cut back to twice a day (maybe watering a little longer to get the water to go deeper) for a week. Then once a day for a week, then every other day. The goal is to water once a week, applying an inch total, all at once. If your soil is too compacted to absorb that much water all at once, water in sections, and apply 1/3 the amount needed to each section, then cycle back around and repeat two more times. That gives the water a chance to soak in. To determine how long you need to water to get an inch of water, place empty tuna cans around the lawn and water for a set amount of time. Then measure the water in the cans to determine how much is applied during that time. If it rains, cut back on the amount you water or delay watering based on the amount of rain. If it rains two inches, that probably doesn't mean that you can wait two weeks, though.

Continue twice-daily watering for the remainder of the first week. Switch to once a day for the second week, and then every other day for the third week. If it seems to have taken root and growing well by then, you can then go to the twice a week schedule allowed by the Water Nazis starting week four or five.