There is no landscape plant more popular than turfgrass -- lawn -- despite all we now know about its wasteful, polluting habits. And we are as hooked on it as it is on water and chemicals. Without a lawn, the common lament goes, how do you make a landscape -- and how do you make a lawn without mowable exotic grasses that guzzle resources? Joe and Carolyn Osborn of Austin, Texas, are among a new breed of Americans who are having it both ways: They have their traditional-looking lawn, but it is made up of native grasses that demand less water, fertilizer, and mowing -- lawns that fit the profile of a natural habitat garden. Landscape architect Steve Domigan developed the plan for their yard, and Environmental Survey Consulting installed large-scale local rock to further enhance the natural character of the design. The Osborns' lawn is buffalo grass ( Buchloe dactyloides ), a native plant whose range extends throughout the Great Plains states -- roughly the middle third of the country and extending north to Canada and south into Mexico. It grows in alkaline, heavy clay, and other conditions. The Osborns' buffalo grass lawn was installed as sod, which must be cut very thick to accomodate enough of the root system, making this an expensive but nearly instant method of coverage. Buffalo grass can also be installed as plugs, spaced about eight inches apart, or seeded.

However, some of the best varieties are not available as seed since they are vegetatively propagated to ensure consistency, such as all-female strains that create a denser apperance. Now established, their buffalo grass is fertilized half the recommended amount in fall with an all-natural organic formula, and watered only as much as needed to keep it green (a twenty-minute soak two or three times a summer). If left unwatered, it will not die but will brown down to a dormant state. Although the Osborns still prefer to mow once or twice a season to keep the grass about six inches high, it can be left to grow to a somewhat shaggy foot and a half.