High Country Gardens, in Albuquerque, specializes in plants (including grasses) for xeric landscapes. Check them out. They also have a sale going on ornamental grasses right now.

You can't go wrong if you use grasses native to the desert environment, although many of them are not very attractive:

Alkali sacaton (Sporobolus airoides)
Indian ricegrass (Achnatherum hymenoides)
Needle and thread grass (Hesperostipa comata)
Plains lovegrass (Eragrostis intermedia)
Sand dropseed (Sporobolus cryptandrus)
Sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula)

Most of these can be grown from seed.

www.curtisseed.com
www.graniteseed.com
www.pawneebuttesseed.com

This information is from The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. Call the Master Gardener line in the Cottonwood office at 646-9113 ext. 14 or E-mail them at cottonwoodmg@yahoo.com

Here is a link that might be useful: High Country Gardens

Terrific, thank you for your info. Have you grown any of these plants, and know of any quirks or anything? I agree that native is the way to go. My only issue with High Country is their prices; but if they're the only one selling something, wellll.... = ) and at least their products are always in terrific condition.

Thought I'd also throw in a Nolina or two, even though I'm guessing that they aren't actually grasses.

I've grown other species of most of them, but these specific items would self-sow furiously in my wet climate.

I agree on High Country's prices, but they're a great source of information and ideas.

Nolina isn't a grass, but some of them certainly have a grassy look, and they're really neat plants.