Since most of southern California is going to be subject to water restrictions that will limit outdoor watering/irrigation to one day a week staring June 1st, this is not the time to consider installing a new lawn! Even very drought tolerant turf grasses like buffalo grass will require more frequent watering during the season to establish well. You will just be throwing your money away.

Consider artificial turf, drought tolerant groundcovers or even wood chips for this summer and revisit the possibility of sodding in fall when the rainy (??) season resumes.

Certainly the water situation in SoCal is an issue. You most definitely want to stay away from any of the fescues like the popular Marathon varieties. But if you insist on grass, we've been watering St Augustine 1 day per week for roughly 10 years in San Antonio. I believe we get a better pattern of rain than you do in SoCal. We get spots of decent rain in the spring and occasionally in the summer. One good soaking is good for at least a week. We did not water last week and probably will not water again this week. Currently we're in the 80s.

Celebration bermuda supposedly has some shade tolerance, but there is not a lot of forum experience with it to say with confidence. I'd stick with St Augustine.

Wood chips for the summer is a good idea. The mulch effect is amazing for creating a healthy soil to sod into. If you wait I would put the sod down as early in Sept as practical after the summer heat breaks. That will give it a good long fall to establish and knit together. Or you could do it now. It will require light daily watering until it knits to the ground, and then back off on the frequency. You should be doing deep and infrequent watering by the end of summer. 100 square feet is tiny, so you could hand water the 'break in' period of about 2 weeks. After that you might want to get a sprinkler.

Ultimately, and especially for the eventual 1 day per week watering, it is best to water 1 inch all at one time. You'll have to time your sprinkler to see how long it takes to deliver 1 inch. Set out some tuna or cat food cans. Time how long it takes to fill the cans. That will be your watering time.

Thank you both for your feedback. We've gone back and forth on artificial vs natural grass. Many times. It's 150-200 sqft feet on a 18,000 square foot lot, so 1% of area. The vast majority of the portion of the lot that is landscaped is done so with succulents and cacti. Basically xeriscaped. The downside to artificial grass is that it is expensive and requires 4' gravel sub-base (when done properly) which is hard to remove if there is a change of heart. It also gets very hot to the touch, and odor control is nontrivial. That said, we may do it. OTOH, I certainly could establish a lawn over the next months prior to the commencement of Metropolitan's water usage restrictions. I called LADWP and they have no idea it is being implemented. I'm 95% sure we live in Met's jurisdiction but I'm still running that info down. Natural grass looks better, feels better but does require some care, and I'm concerned about shading on one of of the two areas. I've read good things about Citrablue which is a relatively new St. Augustine cultivar (rapid, horizontal growth for faster recovery), improved drought and disease resistance, and wear tolerant. It says 'exceptional shade tolerance' but after talking to two sod farms who sell both CitraBlue and Sunclipse each replied that Sunclipse does a bit better in the shade. I'm sure both do much better than Bermuda. At 1:30pm today, only 3/4 of the one parcel that gets shade was in full sun. The sun did not yet arc to get beyond the Juniper canopy. So while my research led me to CitraBlue, I'm unsure about this. If I wait until Fall, what size wood chips? Do you just cover the area like bark? It seems that it would not decompose into the soil? Thank you

For wood chips I would scour the neighborhood for tree companies doing major trimming or tree removal. They are sometimes very willing to leave you some chipped tree trimmings. Wood does not decompose like other organic materials. It will need to be raked out before you put the sod down. The purpose is to provide shade to the microbes for several months and to control evaporation. That stabilizes the soil environment so the beneficial microbes can populate. A dose of organic fertilizer would really help that process. For 200 square feet you could use 4 pounds of flour or corn meal as the organic fertilizer. The microbes eat food like we eat, so for the small areas you can just shop at the grocery store. One application at 2 pounds per 100 square feet is fine. If you have bark, that's fine. Any organic mulch will work. At the end you will have excellent soil. Any soil you bring in at this point will be worse soil, so if you needed to raise the area, do that before covering it.

The good news is that for 200 square feet you don't need a lawn mower. A string trimmer will do just fine.

As for the variety of sod, you can only use what you can get locally.

If you have juniper plants providing shade, then pruning them back is probably out of the question. Junipers don't look good after pruning.

Thank you dchall and gargengal48