Bear in mind the poor person who will have to do the mowing. Keep the shapes smooth and the paths between wide.

Thanks, @floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK. I haven't measured if there's enough room but thinking of doing 2-ft to 3-ft paths. Also planning to buy one of those compact electric mowers (12-in width)

We need to know what's planned for those beds. Mini-forests of tall shrubs and short trees? Low-growing plants like creeping phlox (I love creeping phlox as a groundcover in New England) and Iris crestata? Something in the middle?

From what I'd see, I'd look at it less like the shape and size of beds and more like the shape and size of paths through your garden.

Wow! Those are some huge beds. Will you be dedicated to their upkeep? Yes, I know you mentioned naturalistic, but sometimes there’s a fine line between that and neglected-looking. I mention that because it appears you live in an area of manicured lawns. These beds will be a lot more work than just mowing the grass.

My neighbor has one of those robo-mowers. If you drive by his yard, it looks ok. But I live across the street and I can see the mower does more pushing-down the grass than it does cutting the grass. It mows every third day.

You have a very pretty home, by the way.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Understand that the native plants of your area are maples, oaks, pines, hickories, poplars, hemlocks. . . in other words, trees. If you want to plop a garden of 'native' perennials in there, you are going to have to control the trees. This is not going to be a plant, establish, and forget landscape. It is going to be an unnatural garden with all the work that goes into that. As had already been said, this is a lot of bed area to maintain.

I understand the goal to reduce grass but I agree the layout proposal seems too much work & too hard to mow. What’s the plan for the other side of the sidewalk from street to front door? Will your front scape look unbalanced with so many separate planting beds on only one side? I’m thinking there’s another way to accomplish your stated goal of less grass to maintain. The blue line in your first pic made me think that a single bed that runs parallel to your walkway & that includes the red ?maple? would remove as much or more grass than your 4 drawn out planting beds. It should have gentle curves in the edge between bed & grass - no straight line of course. Another bed could be on the other side of walkway & / or you could expand the beds in front of the house too. Native plants are great but I’d make sure there’s a good backbone of evergreens included so the yard isn’t dormant plants & nothing to look at during long winters.

I'm sure there are plenty of natives other than trees; both shrubs and perennials. But they won't be easy of maintenance and could look scruffy in winter. Things like asters, Eupatorium, Solidagos etc will need some grooming and pruning. Also agree on using some evergreens.

Occasionally hand weeding a tree seedling is less work, IMO, than regular mowing.

I must say, this is an ambitious project. I'd do it in stages, one bed one year, another the next. In part because if the plants thrive, it's far cheaper to transplant some of your existing plants than to buy enough to fill all the beds at once.

Thanks for all the responses. To address some of the comments, I do have someone who mow our grass - but if I create these beds in the front yard, I will not expect them to cut the grass here so I'm planning to tend to the remaining grass myself.

Basically, some things I want to accomplish: attract more wildlife like birds/butterflies/bees, more visual interest than just grass, and something that is more drought-resistant as I don't water my lawn (it looks good now because we got rains recently but it turns a crunchy brown when we do not get rain).

I've also been slowly reducing my lawn in the side/back yards by converting to garden beds. So I've planted birches, serviceberries, and also fruit trees (apple, peach), shrubs like elderberries, viburnum, red twig dogwood, winterberries, chokeberries. I also have a couple of garden beds that are "wildflower" beds - admittedly, these ones can be quite messy-looking at times but I have them in the back. For the front yard, I am looking to plant shorter and maybe neater-looking plants. I don't want to anger my neighbors :) And I'm not opposed to non-natives but want to keep a high percentage of natives (I've been researching native MA meadows). Something like this: https://www.finegardening.com/article/tingshus-low-maintenance-garden-in-massachusetts

This is also an inspiration: https://www.finegardening.com/article/replace-a-front-lawn-with-a-beautiful-eco-friendly-garden

For shrubs, I'm thinking inkberry, shrubby st. john's wort, a compact viburnum. For grasses, prairie dropseed, maybe little bluestem or deschampsia c. For the flowering plants, thinking of lupinus p, rudbeckia hirta, asclepias tuberosa, eurybia divariacata, allium stellatum. This is incomplete - looking at a lot of other options - looking to plant ones I don't already have.

I realize it's a lot of work but I found that once the plants are established, they just need to be cleaned up in winter/before spring. If I plant densely, then weeds are minimized and I won't even need to mulch. I've also seen volunteer plants in my other garden beds.

Your house looks like a colonial. Randomly shaped patches of perennials are not formal or balanced and don't suit your house. I think you should reconsider this concept.

As usual, @simplynatural comes through with a, well, simple and natural design. 😊

The first thing to point out is that, in most parts of New England, meadows are not a natural state. Most of it wants to be forest, you'll have to weed out tree seedling. Not a big problem.

In front of your house, I'm not sure I'd do such tall plants I'd probably do a much lower meadow-type planting. Something more like this.

Coan Waterfront Landscape, Camano Island, WA · More Info

Creeping phlox is native to you and makes a good groundcover, into which you can put some lower-growing plants. Obedient plant is a pretty, and fairly low-growing. Bear-berry is attractive, too. Purple love grass is good, too. I'd make sure you don't get grasses that grow too tall.

@simplynatural thank you for the visual. Based on your design and others' comments, I think I will just have one bed. For those asking about the left side of the walkway, that will be next year's project - it is a smaller area and most of it is covered by a flowering cherry tree.

And yes, it is a big job - so I (plus hubby) make one big bed (or several small beds) every fall. I have collected enough cardboard boxes this year to do sheet mulching. Planning to do the sheet mulching in the next week or so and then plant in the spring. I usually get plugs (thepollennation, prairiemoon, prairienursery) and last winter, I have started seed cold stratification in small plastic covered pots. I'll try those again this winter.

@Sigrid - I like that picture. And thanks for the plant recos - I'm not familiar with any of those (except creeping phlox) so I will definitely look at those.

For those who think our house needs a more formal landscape - I do see your point. However, formal is really not my style. It will be neater and less chaotic than my wildflower gardens in the back but will be looser than formal.

Again, thank you for all the responses. Time to move some dirt!

This style works with your architecture:

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Thank you, Doug and Celery! Really great visuals!