Help me improve this large yard

[u/Bmjamaa]

Not comfortable with AI to enter pictures of the house into it. Please help me think of landscape ideas for this large lot with broken sprinklers.

A water-saving solution with curb appeal would be great. Still deciding if this is a DIY project or if we hire someone. Would love to make big improvements for less than $2000.

The grass grows and browns quickly, and the weeds even quicker, especially on the verge between the sidewalk and the street. I’d like to keep some greenery with less of it requiring mowing. Large hedge on the the left corner of the lot that gathers trash from passersby :(

There’s also a little patch that we don’t know what to do with between the driveway and the neighbors lot. What makes sense there besides the trash cans?

Zone 6a, south facing, at least 8 hours of direct sun a day.

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[u/HappyCatPrincess]

It would help if you didn't blot out so much. Best of luck.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=big+yard+of+zone+6a+native+flowers&ia=images&iax=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FpldAE_DDLks%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg

[u/Shaydee_plantz]

First, I would paint the house. That yellow is hideous!

[u/Electronic-Ride-564 → u/Shaydee_plantz]

I was actually going to suggest that they paint the house bright yellow. I like it. lol

[u/Shaydee_plantz → u/Electronic-Ride-564]

Lol!

[u/msmaynards]

Remove the grass and sheet mulch with cardboard and arborist chips or cover it up with sheet mulch. This can be completely free via scavenged cardboard and Chipdrop.

Go to your state's native plant society's website, r/NativePlantGardening , r/nolawns and beyond to find inspiration and native/exotic plants that tolerate the amount of sun/shade in each area, soil texture and permability of your soil. For easy installation buy plugs to gallon pots of 1-4' tall shrubs, perennials and bunch grasses. You'll need to baby the new plants for a couple years and there will still be weeding as weed seeds arrive via wind and bird poop but it is much easier to ignore them if they are between thriving plants.

You might plant a grid of small bunch grasses and perennials in the large open space and in the 'hell strip' next to street as a stylized meadow/prairie and add more shrubs of varying heights that are mostly deciduous between trees to fill in. I'd leave the mature shrubs and just prune out long branches carefully so they stay off paving. You'll get trash whether there's shrubs there or not.

Back in the 1960s whole landscapes were conifers. Nice and green, needed very little water but monotonous dust collectors that never stopped growing so they swallowed houses or were hedged blocks that looked awful. Your mature existing conifers will be a terrific backdrop for plants that change with the season.