Great site, wish I had found it sooner. I am in the Vallejo, Northern CA area, 94591, zone 9. Had our front lawn landscaped with a fescue thats working well so far.
I would like to do my backyard now, however am interested in another type of grass if possible. The fescue seems to be growing .5"/wk or so. If I don't watch it for a couple of weeks if I'm busy, I'm always surprised at how tall it has gotten. So now for the backyard, I am thinking of possibly a buffalo grass, since the summers are pretty warm (~90+), and lots of long, sunny days.
Would any of the experts have any suggestions on what grasses are best for this area? I'm particularly drawn to the buffalo grasses since they require less water and are much slower growing supposedly.

Also, is there anyway to ID my specific fescue type?

There have also been various attempts to describe climate zones (including not only minimum winter temperature, but also rainfall) using intelligible words such as "warm humid" and "Mediterranean" and the authors in the turfgrass area have modified this to include a "Transition Zone" but I cannot think of a numerical system such as the one shown on lawngrasses.com and they do not say where this came from. It does not appear that it would be very useful as presented.