Frustrated with watering and weeding failing lawns, homeowners in different parts of the city have gone on the offensive. They attacked with newspapers, shovels, pitchforks and herbicides, and little by little they said goodbye to their grass and hello to more colorful landscapes.

In Hollywood Park, hummingbirds dart among flowers in a tranquil, sloping bed that hugs the house. In King William, a mix of mulches looks like an Oriental carpet laid out in front of a late-19th-century cottage. And in Alamo Heights, a collection of native plants befitting a botanical garden thrives where bamboo and ligustrums once put down tenacious roots.

In each case, the DIY homeowners have enjoyed the fruits of their often-difficult labor as their landscapes have evolved. None misses pampering a fussy lawn.

With little to no thirsty grass and a selection of drought-tolerant plants, all can be classified as water-saver landscapes, proof that xeriscapes don't have to resemble photos sent back from the Mars Curiosity rover.

"When we say watersaver landscape, we are not talking about a barren landscape. We're talking about lush, dynamic and diverse," says Mark Peterson, conservation project coordinator for San Antonio Water System.

Hollywood Park

About 10 years ago, Allen Fuller and Gary Robison set out to define the entryway to their home, which sits about midway down a slope that tumbles into a seasonal creek behind their back fence. In addition to focusing on drainage, they had to be mindful of deer, skunks, possums and other critters while looking out for the birds and butterflies they enjoy.

Asian jasmine carpets the ground in front of a foliage-covered rock retaining wall. It fills in like a background melody with the symphony of shrubs and perennials. From coreopsis and ceniza to firebush and lantana, the plants offer a variety of color and texture.

Tucked among the larger plants are herbs such as spearmint, thyme and rosemary, valued for their culinary use and the aromas they bring to the garden after a rain.

A recently installed irrigation system features drip hoses camoflaged with mulch running through the jasmine and drip emitters around shrubs. It runs once a week, if needed. "You can judge very quickly when you've had enough," Fuller says.

After removing red-tip photinias and privet, Robison and Fuller started their project with good soil. "If I was gong to spend time and energy to plant plants, I wanted it to grow. I wasn't going to be chintzy on soil," says Robison.

They saved money by buying smaller plants at their nursery's fall clearance sales and planting babies Fuller propagated from the landscape.

"It's a work in progress," Fuller says. "If you come back in two years, there will definitely be less grass."

Alamo Heights

Bamboo and ligustrum, two highly invasive plants, ruled the landscape around the home Jay Collins moved into in 2001. In the process of digging those out, Collins also ripped out the irrigation system and began planting native plants.

"We wanted to make it look like it had always been there and like you were out in the woods in the Hill Country," says Collins, whose brother Jodie Collins, a landscape designer, created a plan for the yard.

"Whatever I planted needed to be tough enough to survive in this climate or I wasn't going to worry with it," he says. Now, he has a variety of unusual specimens such as mountain mahogany, Vasey's oak, Brasil tree and silk tassel tree.

Blooms of rock rose, salvia, zexmenia and mist flower herald butterflies and hummingbirds.

Collins browses nurseries for unusual native plants, and he forages specimens in the Hill Country. Cedar sedge, a fountain of slender glossy green leaves, is one of his finds. In the wild, the plant is often found in tufts under Ashe junipers. Collins uses it as a ground cover, having found it stays green in deep shade and sun, rainy spells and drought. Patches of horseherb, dotted with tiny yellow flowers, also serve as ground cover in shady spots.

Collins and his brother built a rock patio and fireplace where there once was a thicket of bamboo. The shady spot is a favorite of Collins and his wife, Peggy.

King William

Frustrated with St. Augustine sod that sprouted into knee-high patches of Johnson grass and other weeds, Teresa Niño, got out her pitchfork and started to dig.

She put in a few containers of flowers in the freshly turned dirt and decided to mulch the rest of the yard.

It was late January, and she gave herself a week to cover the front of her corner lot. She ran into what could have been an obstacle when she ripped open a bag of mulch she had purchased on clearance and realized it was a different color than what she had started with.

Her husband urged her to continue the random mix, and the result looks like a tapestry.

Niño puts down three or four layers of newspaper under the mulch to discourage weeds. Along the way, she learned she could stake the paper with wooden chopsticks or sprinkle it with water to keep it from blowing while she spread mulch.

Her weeklong project stretched into summer, when the heat forced her to stop. Now with cooler fall temperatures, she will resume the work along the side of her house.

"It's very therapeutic," she says of the yardwork, "especially when you're working on a computer and looking at numbers all day."