What if I get tired of maintaining a lawn or would like to be more water conscious and eliminate the lawn? How do I go about this?

Typically you would spray the grass area with an herbicide to kill the grass. It is necessary to do this prior to the Bermuda going dormant to get an effective eradication of the grass. The irrigation system can be capped off or can be converted to a drip system if you want to convert to a desert landscape. The desert landscape has a drip irrigation system that waters the plants directly through emitters that are placed near the individual plants. Far less water is consumed with drip systems. Generally, some amount of soil mounding and select boulders in addition to granite coverage gives a more natural appearance to the desert landscape.