This paper aimed to find the suitable herbaceous species and their planting modes for grassland restoration in the desertification area in Tibet. We conducted seeding experiments of four herbaceous species, i.e., Onobrychis viciifolia, Medicago sativa, Elymus dahuricus, and Festuca elata, with different mixing modes and mixing seed amount ratios in desertificated grassland around Cuona Lake, and measured some plant growth indices such as biomass per area for two consecutive years. Results showed that:1) effects of mixing modes on plant height and root length were not significant in the first year for two gramineous species, i.e., E. dahuricus and F. elata, however, plant height of two leguminous species, i.e., O. viciifolia and M. sativa, were significant higher in mixing-plots than in mono-plots. 2) Mixing modes significantly affected the biomass per area in the sowing plots, with biomass of mixing plots increased with decrease of the leguminous plants ratio. The biomass of the best sowing modes were (151.27±15.26) g/m² (E. dahuricus monoculture) and (144.05 ±7.13) g/m² (E. dahuricus+F. elata, 5:5) respectively for the first year, while (832.13±124.71) g/m² (E. dahuricus monoculture) and (723.83±57.14) g/m² (E. dahuricus+F. elata, 7:3) for the second year, respectively. 3) Plant coverage for mixing modes of the two gramineous species were consistently high during the two years, with the maximum coverage of 87% occurred in the first year and over 60% in the second year for E. dahuricus+F. elata (5:5). 4) Gramineous species contributed more biomass per area than leguminous species in grassland restoration under alpine climate.