How exciting! And it looks like you have pretty much a blank slate, which is a great way to start thinking about your project.

A thought as you move forward: consider a DIY install to stretch your budget. As stated, you may find that your budget is spoken for pretty quickly with the cost of plant material alone, before even addressing ground cover, irrigation, and any amenities (lighting, pots, decorative rocks, etc). You'll also want to consider the maturity and size of anything you'd like featured in your yard. While I can't speak to pricing in your location, in this region a 36 gallon standard tree is about 10% of your budget alone!

With that in mind, based on the size of your front yard and the house aesthetic, you'll want full, leafy evergreen plant material to fill out the negative spaces, mixed with your favorite colors in specimens local to you, and some deciduous or evergreen trees or other statement specimens to frame the house on either side. Consider also some pots with more exotic specimens on the porch where you'll have better control of their exposure and general care.

Good luck!

Check out your local nurseries, what they have for your zone.

Some option here

I like this inspiration

Lovley idea of Celery for an entire flower bed of the yard. Make it a pollinator garden that attracts bees and butterflies, hummingbirds. Check your local nursery for plants that will work with your soil type and Climate Zone...NOT a big box store. No mowing or shearing and a very attractive natural look.

Lovely, classic house, beautifully restored! Classic landscaping to match would also be an option. This continues the red/white/blue color scheme of the house, using azaleas, hydrangea paniculata, a mock orange for height, vinca minor alba beneath, candytuft in the sidewalk strip with a few summer flowers growing through. Spring and summer views shown, although even with two views, not everything would bloom simultaneously. (The mock orange would bloom in early summer, the hydrangeas later, for example.) I did widen the walk/steps to match the porch opening and added a second stair railing, but that could come later.

Mulch color should be undyed. That should leave you with 2 relatively similar shades of brown.

I'd go with a low-growing meadow-type garden. This is a california pic, but you get the idea

Silver Meadow · More Info

You want to think of your yard as a fruitcake. You have matrix plants which will be the bulk of them, like a groundcover. This is something that will hold up well all 4 seasons. Often it's a grass, like Penn sedge. But you could use creeping phlox, too. Then you have primary plants that are like the raisins in the fruit cake. You want some for each season, and plenty of them throughout your matrix. You can make the look cohesive by choosing one color theme. So, if you did whites, you might have some white bulbs (white daffodils for spring, alliums for summer), some tall phlox, some white salvia, some rattlesnake master, some white penstemmon) then you have a stars. This will be taller, possibly shrubs or small trees. Dogwood, azaleas, fothergillia, itea.

If you did yellows, you might have a sedge or grass as your matrix, yellow daffs, coreopsis, doronicum, daisies, and then any of the many fall yellow plants for your "raisins". The few stars might be some small yellow-foliaged evergreens Thuga Annie's Magic Ball, perhaps. Yellow Baptisia, forsythia, etc.

It should require no mowing and less water. You might have to do a bit of weeding every now and then. The economical way to plant this is by plugs. Many places that sell plugs require ordering at the right time of year. I love The Pollen Nation. Their plugs are $4/each and the quality is great. That allows you to buy lots.

If you go this direction, go to the library and look for books that will help, go to your local botanical garden. Then look for the plants. Start this year wtih your few stars, plan to spend $500 or more on plugs to plant next year. This year, either stick with mulch or plant annuals.

Front meadow, July 3, 2022 · More Info

Here a some low maintenance suggestions that provide spring & summer color & evergreen presence in the winter: