Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

You can go to our Native Plant Database, select "California" and "grass or grass-like" on the pull-down menus for State and Habit, and click on the 'Submit combination box." When we did this, we got 248 possibilities for carex (genus for sedge) and other grasses, native to California. We narrowed it down to Carex native to California, and got 46 possibilities. When, however, we started checking with the USDA Plant Profile for some of these choices, we found very few that are native to South Central California in the Kern County area. It would seem that sedges, in general, are not fond of the environment in your area.

We wonder if perhaps we are barking up the wrong tree. We often suggest Meadow Gardens for people desiring to get away from the traditional lawn. Please read our How-To Article on Meadow Gardening and see if some of the ideas might be applied to your situation. Another article of interest in your situation is Native Lawns.  Unfortunately, the favorite native grass mix of Texas,  Bouteloua gracilis (blue grama) and Bouteloua dactyloides (buffalograss) does not appear to grow in your area, but there are other good suggestions in the article. 

To get some input from some experts a little closer to the situation than we are, we suggest the California Native Grasslands Association website. It has a number of links where you can get more information, particularly for your part of California. Another source of assistance on choosing lawn plantings is the Kern County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. Also, consider contacting the University of California Cooperative Extension Office for Kern County.