By August the hills above Brea have gone the color of dry straw, and the only green left on them is the gray-green of sage and buckwheat holding on until the rains return. California Native Landscape Design works with that same logic closer to the house: mowing and edging the lawn that stays, keeping the beds weeded and planted with things suited to a place that can go eight months without a real storm. Watering gets tuned to the season instead of the calendar, so the grass drinks when it needs to and not out of habit. A yard here can look alive deep into September without asking the tap for more than it should. The finished result belongs to its own hillside rather than to somewhere wetter.