Xeriscaping - the use of drought-resistant plants instead of acres of water-guzzling lawns - would not only save precious water but could create a wonderful display of the state's native flora and other desert plants. Utahns who want to get ideas for their own low-water landscaping projects at home could travel to the Capitol to see how it is done. The Capitol grounds could become not only a beautiful Great Basin garden, but a teaching tool.

State government, which in the current drought is constantly telling Utahns to "Slow the flow, save H2O," could lead by example. The folks at the State Aboretum and Red Butte Garden could be tapped to lend advice and expertise.

This does not appear to be the direction that Capitol renovation planners are moving, however. One of the goals of the $200 million renovation of the Capitol is to preserve and restore its architectural integrity, and in that spirit, landscapers are looking to the original plans for the building and its grounds as inspiration.

That means that they are planning a park-like setting with lots of lawn.

Original plans for the Capitol grounds were created first by John Olmsted, then by Richard K.A. Kletting, the building's architect. Olmsted was the nephew of Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture who designed New York's Central Park. Though neither Olmsted's nor Kletting's master plan for the Capitol's grounds was ever fully implemented, both envisioned a 19th-century park rather than a 21st-century xeriscape.

Any new design that looks to recreate the Capitol's founding aesthetic is likely to give xeriscape short shrift. But it should be possible to pay homage to the past while taking into account the state's growing thirst and the need for governments to lead by example.

Xeriscapes and lawns are not mutually exclusive. The many acres of Capitol grounds could continue to offer some lawns to accommodate picnickers and visiting schoolchildren while devoting other large areas to gardens of drought-resistant plants and landscape elements that require little or no water.

Capitol Architect Dave Hart says that planners are working to incorporate drought-resistant plants where possible, and they will install a computerized watering system that will monitor soil and atmospheric conditions to ration water. However, he rejects the idea that the Capitol grounds should be a xeriscape demonstration project.

Point taken. But this is not an all-or-nothing choice, and the Capitol grounds are not just a landscape museum, either.