We do, and see, a lot of xeriscaping to reduce lawn size in order to reduce the water usage. Discussions at Xeriscaping and at Colorado Master Gardener.

Yup..i've lost roughly half my yard or more to garden beds. I still have too much lawn.

Doesn't necessarily reduce work, but it reduces water use and chemical use and it certinly provides more variety than mowing the lawn weekly.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings Blog

It's harder to weed than it is to mow in my estimation. I plant flowers, veggies, fruit, and trees because I love the look of a garden. But I spend hours every day out there caring for them. Mowing a lawn would be much easier.

I replaced my entire front lawn. It was a small lawn and not worth the mowing effort..........so I covered the whole thing in several layers of newspaper and dumped good earth on top of it....planted shrubs and ornamental grasses, mulched heavily, and it took off from there. Requires just one clean up in the spring, and rarely needs water!