I'd love to rip out all that non-native Kentucky Bluegrass and plant native grasses, shrubs and trees with winding paths. Think the neighborhood will mind? Heck, I've got to first get my family to accept it!

I'm going to use those water retaining crystals when planting flowers. Also more mulching.

I'm going to put in more natives, concentrate on natives, only add non-natives, if the plant is tolerant of dryness.
No more rhodo. types that are picky about conditions. I have a big 'ol 35 year + Roseum Elegans that I never took care of for years, and it has thrived. Only this type will perform well, in and out of these droughts.

I'll be planting more xeric natives and change watering habits for the grass I currently have. I am required by city ordinance to have my death strip landscaped with lawn. I may go out on a limb and violate the ordinance and replace this strip, which faces southwest, with perrenials.

Before you get all misty-eyed about saving water by switching landscaping ... it takes almost as much water to get them established as it does the non-natives. They are only drought resistant AFTER they get a good root system.

The time to switch to low water use plants is BEFORE the drought, not in the middle of it.

lazygardens, better late than never.

I'll be fixing up all the rain gutters and down spouts on all the structures so I can catch as much rain run off as possible in barrels, etc. (that's assuming we get any rain)I'll probably plant up a few pots with annuals and the plants that I've been overwintering under lights, but not as many as usual. I'll also be installing a drip system in the veggie garden, cause I just can't bring myself to not plant veggies. That would just about be the end of me. I'm sure it will be a stuggle, but I can't imagine a growing season without fresh matters.
As for major planting, I'm not planning on it. DH and I planted several trees and shrubs this fall and these are what I'll be trying to keep alive.
I do see one good thing that could possibly come of this drought though. As water becomes more expensive, the restrictions become greater and the lawn browns and dies, my DH may finally see why I've been wanting to reduce it's size.

xanadu -
Not really. Better to just let the water-hoggish plants die off and then establish low water users after the drought is over.

Well, I tilled under my high-water-use front lawn last summer and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it! I did use the polymer crystals for the new plantings and it has been worth it...did not need to water as frequently after the first week or 2. I also create a "well" around new plants with soil, plastic collar or whatever, to collect water in the areas where needed most. I've also been creating cooler microclimates in my southwest-facing backyard with native and drought-tolerant trees and shrubs. Have plans for rain barrels. No more overhead watering.

I'm looking at planting drought resistant flower seeds (Black Eyed Susans, Cupid's Dart, etc)in my veggie patch this year and planting veggies in pots and barrels by the house. Plan to use the polymer crystals in the pots. My vegetable garden is on a hill 100 feet from the house. It sits on an agricultural ditch, but I don't have water rights and have to run a hose up from the house. Since I expect water restrictions this year, I think having the vegetable patch sit somewhat fallow makes sense. I'm still going to mulch and compost it. (Lakewood, Colorado....West of Denver)

Long rant: My Home Owners Association went nuts when I asked if I could tear up some asphalt in the front of my townhouse. (It's technically my land but governed by covenants. The builder had everything paved-over near the entryways "to make it easy for everyone... what a moron!) Anyway, the "landscaping" of the common areas consists of vast expanses of round river-rock with scrawny aspens and plebian spireas. BORING!

So I will be creating a planting of several dozen large terra cotta pots filled with industrial-strength shrubs and natives field-gathered from land that is about to be developed. I'll be doing big sage and rabbitbrush, yucca and curlleaf mountain mohogany, silverleaf buffalo berry and so on. I'll also have some ornamental grasses and tough flowers (sunflowers, penstemons, blue flax, agastache, etc) for color. The deep red of barberries will complement silvery sage. The container garden will be anchored by an 8 foot evergreen tree: a pinyon or a similarly tough conifer in a huge stained concrete planter. It'll be really cool to have my "foothills high desert garden" in pots along my driveway. To hell with control freaks who want antlike paved conformity in a townhouse community! I'm going to create the most water-thrifty container garden around and show folks that there's more to an entryway that a plastic pot of petunias and a ceramic deer!

And for dswan in utah, I say to hell with a turf hell strip. Tear out the lawn and plant boldly where no one has planted before! Hell strips drive me crazy. They are wasteful, ugly and stupid. Lauren Springer created a wonderful and lush hell strip with industrial strength plants. Her book with Rob Proctor is called Passionate Gardening. It's my absolute fav gardening book of all time. There's a great chapter on hell strips and a huge list of plants that will thrive on natural precip once established. (For Paul Donovan in Denver, this book also has some great photo and stories about doing just what you want to do: replace lawn with plants. With the continuing drought and water rate hikes, you might not be able to afford a front lawn!) Springer admits that she fudged with city rules on her hell strip planting. But who is going to complain about flowers in bloom? Municipal codes that "require" turf on hell strips are incorrect and outdated for the thirsty West. If worse comes to worse, there's Buffalo Grass. Plant your Buffalo Grass with small bulbs for spring color. Buffalo Grass doesn't "green up" in early spring. But since I'm in such a rebelious mood, I fully encourage you to tear up the grass and go with a magnificent and waterwise planting of colorful flowers, succulents and cacti.

On my tiny hell strip, I pulled out the dull swath of "deocorative mulch" and planted hens and chicks, dwarf yuccas, yellow ice plants and shrubby ice plants, lavander, moonglow yarrow, artemesia, small hardy barrel cactus, wooly veronica, wooly thyme, penstemons (various), blanket flower, dragons blood sedum, tricolor sedum, and old man's bones sedum) and clumps of blue fescue grass. It's a riot of texture and hues under and around a thornless hawthorn. I didn't ask for "permission" and so far, many of the neighbors have copied the idea.

Death to grass hell strips and asphalt! Join the revolution!

We will not do anything different except get more mulch. the property is "planted" in native stuff. We do need to do more thinning in the woods so that the moisture that falls will be enough for the trees that are there. Too many trees means that none will get enough water.

Lee AKA Fireraven9
What will I do when I can no longer dig? -Knute Hamson, Growth of the Soil

I will replant some of my grass that died in the last drought with white dutch clover. Add crystals to new plantings, plant only drought tolerant annuals, and catch water from my down spouts, plant some more ivey and periwinkle on the north side of the house that gets so much shade anyway.

I'm starting to replace my lawn with more drought resistant lawn covers. For instanct I've planted some periwinkle, and babied it through the drought last year. This year I would like to start a thyme to replant my boulevard and front lawn. Little by little.

Not a darn thing. If the time comes when I cannot grow my vegetable garden and ornamental plots with the plants that are the reason for my love of gardening, I'll hang up my hoe, sell out and move on. The fact is, I am very water wise with plant placement, keeping the soil friable and water retentive and using mulch, mulch, mulch--properly. One of my guidelines is an old Turkish saying: one hoeing is worth two waterings. Sure it takes work and you're never going to have the Tivoli Gardens, but that's not the point in the desert. I estimate that for my entire property I use less than half the water some of my neighbors do just for their extensive lawns. My lawns,incidentally, if you can call them lawns, are Bermuda grass. In 13 years they have never gotten a drop of water from me but for about six months of the year are the equal of any golf course I've seen around here. My annual rainfall is 7 inches in a normal (?) year.