Laura Bliss Leary began recruiting gardeners nearly a year ago for the Atlanta Botanical Garden's annual private garden tour, but she had one little problem: the drought.

"Most of the homeowners who care about the environment weren't going to break the rules and water at night," she said.

Johnny Crawford / AJC (ENLARGE)

The Atlanta Botanical Garden's annual tour this year focuses on water-savvy gardening. Above, April and Phil Nagel's Tuxedo Place landscape features an English-inspired garden.

Johnny Crawford / AJC (ENLARGE)

The Nagel's use rustic Bordeaux wine barrels to capture rainwater in their water-wise garden.

RELATED LINKS: • Photos: See more of this garden • If you go: Map and more • Upcoming home and garden tours • Get more garden ideas

And with little rain, few gardeners felt their garden worthy.

But as any good gardener knows, the show must grow on. So she dug a little deeper and found homeowners and landscapers whose gardens had survived, even flourished.

Some used rain cisterns. Others saved gray water. A few removed grass, while others turned to hardscaping. And thanks to recent changes in watering rules, at least one professionally installed garden has benefited from regular watering this spring.

Regardless of their tactics, each gardener has emerged from the drought with a lush green space ready to view this weekend.

"This year as a whole, there are a lot of hands-on gardeners. They're the ones who pulled the weeds, planned it and planted it," said Leary, a garden volunteer and chair of this year's event.

"I think everyday gardeners can take something away from it, instead of 'If I had a million dollars, my garden would look like this.' "

Here are some tips on display at the Gardens for Connoisseurs Tour this weekend:

Get rid of grass: In Vanessa Vadim's Grant Park garden, grass is nowhere to be found. Removing the water-thirsty turf allows rainfall to feed perennials and trees.

Container planting: In his Decatur garden, famed landscape designer Ryan Gainey planted drought-tolerant perennials like daphne in containers throughout the whimsical garden.

Drought-friendly plants and rocky roads: In her formal Buckhead garden, homeowner Charlotte Walbert chose drought-tolerant plants such as holly and lots of pea gravel in shaded areas for drainage.

Discreet cisterns: Scotty Pannell feeds her Buckhead garden from two 1,200-gallon rain cisterns located beneath her deck, providing an abundant water source without detracting from the landscape.

"Living roof": Dana McPherson and Bill Brown's Loring Heights home and garden seem one and the same. To spruce up a flat roofline, landscaper McPherson recently installed a "living roof," trays of sedum that capture water and funnel it to the garden below.

Ax the annuals: Bryan Cooke and Bill Musso brought color into their lavish Druid Hills backyard with perennials, such as creeping fig vines, roses, camellias, lilies and flowering trees.

Raised beds: Carolyn and David Gould have an enviable landscape in Druid Hills; their wetlands property boasts a stream, conifer garden and any number of azaleas and foxgloves growing in the shade. But despite the nearby water, the Goulds built raised beds in their vegetable garden to help control drainage and concentrate watering solely on the plants.

Eye-catching rain barrels: At April and Phil Nagel's Tuxedo Place landscape, Bordeaux wine barrels capture rain and offer an attractive, rustic feel to this English-inspired garden.

IF YOU GO:

2008 Gardens for Connoisseurs Tour

10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Tickets: $20 in advance, $30 day of tour and $10 for individual gardens. Kids 12 and younger free. For a list of ticket-sales locations, visit www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org or call 404-591-1582 to pay with credit card.

ALSO THIS WEEKEND

Inspired to give your garden a water-wise makeover? Learn more about water conservation, soil building and composting this Saturday with the DeKalb County Extension Service and its master gardening program. Free. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. DeKalb Farmers Market, 3000 E. Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur.