Why don’t you grow local native plants in your yards?

Lawn in yards are common in USA. However, keeping lawn green needs lots of water in California. California central valley is a center of agriculture due to excellent soil quality (ref). However, weather of California central valley is Mediteranian type, which has long dry summer and wet winter (ref). Recent years California has frequent drought problems (ref), which leads me to try replacing lawn into drought resistant plants, especially local native plants, which are resistant to drought.

under construction

• How about to have local temp and precipitation data here?

preparation

• Yolo county native sedge plants (Carex praegracilis) have been propagated in my backyard from transplants purchased from Hedgegrow farm on May 2013. They have been well grown in my backyard. Transfer 10% of plants to brick garden in front of dining (2015?) and front yard (2016 and 2017). They survived and propagated without watering. I am convinced that Carex praegracilis is good for my yards w/o any watering.
• Other native plants have been grown very well, including California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), pacific aster (Symphyotrichum chilense), Silver Bush lupine (Lupinus albifrons), and showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) (please see my plant picture above. This plant looks like showy milkweed, right?).
• I stopped watering for drying yards (for two years). Even though there are still spotty green lawns. I still needed to remove lots of non California native and ivasive plants such as Prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola) (on June and Aug, 2018). Since then, the front yard is clean except lawns.
• On my backyards, I noticed a couple of common invasive non-native plants, such as Blessed Milkthistle (Silybum marianum) and a kind of tall grasses (?).

Start growing California central valley native plants from seeds

• Adding water (10 min sprinkler and 10 min hand watering) and sprankle a half pound of California central valley pollination seed mix purchased from Headgegrow farm (Oct 16, 2018). Michael Maccini in Hedgegrow farm told me that watering everyday until seeds germinate and having seedlings grow is recommended.
• Further observation will be updated.