I thought of one other thing regarding native lawns. They sometimes take a few years to get well established. I read somewhere that many people feel that their native seeding projects have failed because they don't see much grass in the first year or so. The reason for that is that initially, most of the growth is down, rather than up. By that, I mean that the grass is busy putting roots deep into the soil and only after the grass has a well established root system does it start working on growing up and out. Your buffalo grass will spread via stolons, but the grama is more of a bunch grass. It spreads slowly by tillering, and mowing will encourage the tillering, but it won't spread very quickly. My point is that if the lawn looks sparse the first year or two, don't give up hope. Native lawns take longer to establish. Once your lawn is established, it will probably stay alive with no additional water (even in Phoenix). But to keep it green, you'll need to give it 1/2 inch to an inch of water every couple of weeks when it's not raining. In the Phoenix area, the only lawns that will stay green with less water than you'll use are the ones with the painted rocks or the astroturf.

OP is in PA, Buffalo grass is warm season grass. No warm season grass is going to stay green for 10 months in PA. Seven, Kentucky Bluegrass is the best adapted grass in your climate and for your conditions. Maybe you can try Tall Fescue, but it doesn't spread to fill in damage areas like Bluegrass. If you are not going to water during the summer and fertilize to a minimun, then go with the common type Bluegrass like Kenblue, South Dakota, etc. Those do better than the Elite types under low maintenance and no additinal irrigation. Kenblue is one variety approved by the North Carolina Department of Transportation to be use as road grass (very low maintenance) Click on the link below: Here is a link that might be useful: Kentucky Bluegrass Info

Only modification you have to make from the Bible is more frequent watering due to the shallow root system of new sod. With that said forget about any type of watering rules like 1-inch per week. It does not work. Instead let your grass tell you when it needs water by looking at it. Then give it a good soaking of 1-inch of water. It is real easy to tell when Bermuda or really any grass needs water. Look for the first signs of color shift from emerald green to more dull bluish grey color. When the grass starts to get dry the grass blades will curl up to minimize sun exposure and conserve water. When that happens the underside of the blade is visible and has a duller Bluish Grey color. The other method is the walk test. As you walk look behind yourself for foot prints. With well hydrated grass the foot prints disappear. When dry you will see your foot prints. Learn how to do it as it is really easy once you have seen it once or twice. At the very first sign, soak it. In everyone's yard there is an area that goes dry first before any other area. Find that spot in your yard and watch it. It will typically be a high spot exposed to the elements of sun and wind.

Update on prestige buffalo grass plug planting in Thornton, CO: It has been almost two months. I have learned a lot--a lot of things i would do differently the next time. I hope there is not a next time. The plugs come very tangled with the stolons rooting in adjacent plugs. The roots are 'pot-bound,' and don't tolerate drying out. May 1st was too early to plant for two reasons: One, still too cold. These plugs are coming from a warm greenhouse, so even if they would grow in May had they spent all winter in the ground, they got shocked going from the greenhouse to the reality of a Colorado spring. Two, a lot of weeds have not come up as of May 1st. It may have been better to let those weeds come up for a couple of weeks in May, spray, then plant the plugs with less weed competition and warmer nightime temperatures. I regrettably did not apply a pre-emergent. This was a mistake. On part of the area, I ended up spraying a Bayer or Ortho 2,4,D product, which the label says is rated for buffalo grass as long as it is not over 85 degrees. Well I sprayed it when it was about 80 degrees, and it knocked the plugs back for about 4 weeks. It did not kill them, but just now green is starting to emerge (I sprayed in 3rd week of May) Back to planting the plugs--the key seems to be getting actual roots covered by the soil. This may seem obvious, but most plugs the tillers were connect by a half inch of bare root to the root-plug-ball. I found if I covered not just the root ball but also the bare roots, they seem to do better. On the upside, it seems that once the roots start actively growing, runners start shooting off very aggressively. They seem to be well adapted to compete against weeds. If they shoot under a weed that shades them, then they just shoot longer until they reach a sunny spot. Also, they are very low growing--so mowing on a low setting will be effective as it wont cut the buffalo grass runners, but will cut the weeds. Last week I began a tedious process of covering plugs with plastic beer cups and then spraying roundup on the weeds. This will be difficult to do this week as the runners have spread out a lot. I have ordered some Drive 75 df herbicide, which is supposed to be able to be used on bufffalo grass to control crabgrass and broadleaf weeds. I keep watching my neighbors struggle with their KBG sod -- mowing watering fertizlizing. I hope my toiling is rewarded by someday having limited mowing, watering, and fertizling--but it won't be this year