15 yard penalty for not explaining the extent of the issue up front. I know you tried but really, words cannot convey what a few pictures can. Start with water and fertilizer. The point of this approach is to get a healthy stand of weeds and grass as fast as practical. Then kill the weeds. Some weeds will not take up the Weed-B-Gone unless they are healthy. More on the Weed-B-Gone below. Overdo the organic fertilizer. Have you read the Organic Lawn Care FAQ over on the Organic Gardening forum? I would start with 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet of soybean meal or alfalfa pellets. Repeat in 3 weeks. Watering is your critical issue. That soil does not look like it is going to absorb quickly without runoff. That means a lot of light watering with lots of pauses in between. Start by misting the soil and moving fast to another place. Eventually work your way back to the starting spot and water a little longer. Or you might try using a soaker hose in the places that are small and hard to get to. I have a killer soaker hose approach for you. Stretch the soaker out so that it is at least 18 inches away from itself. That means no coiling on top of itself. Just run it back and forth leaving 18 inches between the 'rows.' Try to keep the hose at parallel contours so that it does not have a low spot. Then turn on the faucet to a trickle. A trickle at the faucet means 1 cup per minute. I realize this is barely a leak and you have a long hose but this method will startle you as to the effectiveness. Leave that faucet running for a full week, day and night. At the end of a week if you have not covered the entire lawn with soaker hose, then move it over 18 inches and start again. When you finish covering the entire yard with the soaker, start again back at the beginning. By the way, this soaker hose does NOT take the place of regular watering. What it does is soften your soil so that it will absorb moisture quickly. The point of this is to get everything (weeds and all) growing and healthy. Some of the weeds will die out quickly because they cannot tolerate regular moisture or fertilizer. The rest will become healthy enough to die quickly when you hit it with the Weed-G-Gone. To summarize what I am saying: cultivate your weeds with the best lawn care practices (listed way above). Do this for six weeks or so. Then get some Weed-B-Gone with clover killer. Instead of a hand spray, get the one the connects to you hose. You can cover the entire yard in a few minutes. In fact it is so easy and fast you have to be careful not to overdo it. Some of the weeds will die seemingly overnight. Others will require another dose in a week. What you will be left with is grass and grassy weeds. I will not go so far as to say you will be out of the woods at that point, but it will be much easier to evaluate. My fear is you have some creeping bentgrass in there. That is a tenacious plant. It can be a nice...

Wow! Glad you found a place to vent! In our area the "Nazis" are the native plant people who are trying to convince people to use more natives. I am not a purist although I have stopped planting anything that is on the invasive list for our area and am slowly trying to take out the invasives that are on my property. I have a "field," not a lawn. It is full of wild strawberries, violets, carexes, and yes, some lioripe,too. When it is mowed in the summer, it is lovely and green. We have a very small token lawn for the dogs. It is zoysia, not fescue, and requires no chemicals and little maintenence. Of course, it is brown in the winter but very dense, hence the perfect "bed" for our neighbor's dog. I was told one time that, until MacDonalds uses native plants around its buildings, the average person would not be interested in using natives. I have seen some use of natives in front of many new developments and some business establishments. Therefore, I am much encouraged. I try to get people hooked on to natives by showing them how beautiful and garden worthy many of them are. I think they will see and perhaps be interested in promoting saving lots more, even those ugly ducklings that are not garden worthy but are part of the overall ecological picture. You need to find some like-minded people in your area to discuss all of this. Joining the NC Native Plant Society has introduced me to lots of folks, ranging from the purists to people like me who find it easier to encourage and suggest. I agree with you in principal but find that ranting just elevates the blood pressure. I joined the local Master Gardener program when I retired eight years ago but have been disappointed with their concept of environmental care. They are great people but not really focused on natives nor the larger picture of caring for the environment. The past two years of drought have really been a blessing because recently they have been talking about drought resistant plants, many of which are natives. Another wow! Now you have me waxing philosophical. Fight the good fight, but calm down. Remember the flies/honey bit and take deep breaths.

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.

Do you know if anyone nearby ever gets crabgrass? If crabgrass is not an issue in your area then you might be able to seed now. Otherwise it is best to wait until August to seed. When you seeded did you water it lightly (5 minutes) 3x per day? Seed needs continual moisture to germinate. Once the seed comes up you can start to back off on the frequency and increase the duration. For your lawn I would use a turbo type of oscillator type sprinkler on a hose. The turbo oscillators are much more reliable than the old mechanical oscillators. To get full grass coverage most all of the time you should put some Kentucky bluegrass in your mix. It is a full sun type of grass, so it should work for you. Once it becomes established KBG will spread to fill in thin spots and help keep weeds out. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. Fertilize the lawn on Victoria Day and again on Labour Day. Fertilize again sometime between Halloween and Remembrance Day. The specific timing is after the grass has completely stopped growing but before total dormancy sets in. Are you interested in using organic fertilizers?