Drought-tolerant gardening in Austin, TX

Instead of pouring rare water over lawns of grasses not adapted to heat and drought, plant a prairie of native plants that you let go brown in the summer drought. A great article on projects like this in Austin, TX was recently published in The New York Times.  A short excerpt, showing how perception is strongly linked to knowledge (or lack thereof) for many people:

“People were asking: ‘What are all these weeds? Why aren’t we mowing?’ ” Mr. Simmons said. So he started giving talks to the community, and his team gave tours and handed out educational material.
“Six months later, when we decided to mow, to make the wildflowers show up better in the spring, we got all these calls saying, ‘Why are you mowing down our prairie?’ ” he said.