'ensnared by flowers, I fall on grass...' Marvell

I've been mulling over the stuff I saw and heard last Saturday at the Mediterranean Garden Society/Pacific Horticulture seminar and field trip. Monterey and Carmel are spectacular by definition, and the two gardens we saw were certainly dramatic. One was beautiful, the other rather stark, astoundingly expensive, and not, for me, inspiring, but the two did further call into question my issues about planting, and, in particular, the lawn. It is not currently politically correct to have a traditional lawn here in the California mountains, and certainly, the lawn is a huge consumer of both water and time/energy. On the other hand, a level green plane, as supplied by mown grass, does design things that nothing else I can think of seems to do. In my case, the visual busyness of the surrounding forest of tan oaks, Douglas firs, madrones, and redwoods needs calming down. I have walled off a smallish area, put flower borders around the perimeter, and centered it with - gasp - a lawn. It gets watered and mown twice a week in summer. To inspire myself with possible substitutes, I did purchase two books that were for sale at the seminar, The Dry Gardening Handbook by Filippi and California Native Plants for the Garden by Bornstein, Fross, and O'Brien. The first has great material on cistuses and lavender, and the latter is particularly exciting, since both Fross and O'Brien presented at the seminar, and were interesting and persuasive. Neither, however, gives me a good lawn alternative. The Bernard Trainor garden we saw has his usual koeleria meadow/lawn. The grass's sort of humpy, bumpy green does not do it for me. I really don't know how to get rid of my lawn in any way that will be visually satisfying. People sometimes have lawns also as play areas for grandchildren, croquet, etc., and that was a consideration for us early on, but now that our grandchildren are grown and our lawn is full of the remains of mole runs and gopher holes, making it not croquet-appropriate, the visual calm is its main function. So far nothing else works - but I'll keep trying. I certainly don't want to be a water hog, and less labor would be a blessing. So - onward!