Native front yard pics please.

My suburban front yard is a blank slate. Just weedy lawn and a small crape myrtle. I would like to use native plants and reduce the lawn to a center oval.The larger lawn area on one side of the drive is 36 feet deep by 54 feet wide and the other side is just about 10 feet wide by 54. The houses in this neighborhood have traditional formal foundation plantings and perfect lawns. All the usual plants: crape myrtle, spirea, nandina, barberry, Otto Lueken laurels, and burning bush. Yuck. I would love to see what you all have done with your front yards, or other areas that could translate to the front yard. I need ideas. Thank you in advance. Alicia

Alicia, I don't know if this will be a help. There's nothing here that could be called usual, but this is the perennial border that runs along the eastern leg of our driveway. This is looking toward the road. Goldenrods, New England asters, black eyed susans, joe pye weed, steeple bush, and golden glow rudbeckia.

What a nice tall border that adds privacy. It is low maintenance too!

and looking up the drive, some golden glow in the foreground and bone set (Eupatorium alba in the right hand corner, and the asters and goldenrod

Nice combinations. I love the natural look. I hope to have an area I can let go a little wild. If I keep a lawn area, like you did, it will look planned. I would also like to substitute natives for the common landscape plants. Fothergilla instead of Burning Bush and clethra instead of spirea. Thank you for posting your pics.

Thank you for the topic, mostlysunny, and you for the pictures, Kathleen. I have nothing but weedy lawn in the front, but lots of sun. When I finish clearing the shady backyard I would like to do something native, flowering, and low maintainance.

Wowie Kathleen, That's gorgeous!

enya, thanks. the only living beings on the other side are the little heifers, and I really don't need too much privacy from them. The bright pink Aster nova angliae is at least 6 feet tall this year, and the goldenrod is keeping up.

mostly sunny, I know it's probably a little wild for a more suburban setting, but the only person it bothers out here is my husband. He weed eatered it last year to get rid of the goldenrod for me, unfortunately, he took the asters too. There are some nonnative spring and summer plants in the bed, they just disappear in autumn's glory.

Floridian, yeah, and would you believe that I actually planned most of it?? There are a few, ahem, volunteers, but most of it I planted with my own little hands.

Just to keep things proper, some of the paler and shorter asters are New York asters, A. nova belgii. There is one that is quite electric blue on sunny days, but most are just a bit more subtle than the NE.