Solebury, Pa.

DAVID BENNER hasn't watered his lawn since the Kennedy administration. He hasn't mowed it, either. And it's doing just fine. On a late-April afternoon, the two-acre property surrounding his ranch house in Bucks County was a carpet of green, uniformly lush and velvety under a canopy of shade trees.

Mr. Benner, 78, a retired professor of ornamental horticulture, is also a longtime practitioner and advocate of what he calls "the moss approach" to lawn maintenance. "Every time I give a lecture, I go into this spiel: get rid of your grass, and grow moss," he said. "And now it's finally gaining momentum."

For more than a century, moss has been anathema to homeowners and gardeners. Type "moss" and "lawn" on an Internet search engine and you'll find more ways to kill it than create it.

But in recent years, this humble, hardy plant, which has been around for at least 450 million years, has been growing in popularity as an alternative to the traditional lawn. Tim Currier, the owner of Sticks and Stones Farm in Newtown, Conn., which has specialized in selling moss for 10 years, estimated that his sales are up 30 percent just in the last year. And Celeste Kennedy, who owns Rolling Hill Farm in Green Bay, Va., reported a 40 percent sales increase, with growing interest in moss from both homeowners and businesses.

It's not hard to see why. Moss, which grows fast and hugs the ground, prevents soil erosion. Its density repels weeds. Deer do not snack on it. It can be walked on. Even when it looks dead, a splash of water can restore it to emerald health within minutes. It doesn't need fertilizer (lacking a root system, it takes nutrients from water and air). All it needs, in fact, are shade, moisture - though not large amounts of water - and what most gardeners would regard as poor-quality soil.