it depends on how much maintenance you are up for.

Weed eating a patch of 'Lawn' weekly?

If you love to spend time in the garden, weeding?

Do you want to hide your patio from the street? Do you park your car on the street?

How about a photo of the home from the street with all of the garden you already have?

We probably won’t weed a patch or lawn. We don’t weed it now. I don’t mind weeding in the garden now and again and we have had weeding help this year. Don’t want to hide anythinf. Will need to grab a pick when put with dog in a bit.

I an currently in the process of doing the opposite: shrinking a flower bed and enlarging the yard. For me, it’s much much easier to mow grass than to keep flower beds weeded. Even though I LOVE gardening.

Fair but we haven’t had luck with this area or lawn. We also have lawn watering restrictions May to October but don’t for gardens.

@littlebug Zone 5 Missouri I too am making more lawn, removing pavers with creeping thyme between. My excessive weeding days are over. I am making a raised bed with my favorite perennials.

I'd like to see @WestCoast Hopeful a photo of the home, wondering if a slate path to the front door from the street would work with an evergreen ground cover.

so many great groundcovers, just need to decide on how tall...

we have had weeding help this year

What does this mean, aside from the fact that you haven't had to do the weeding yourself? Is this something you can count on going forward?

In my part of the world, it is notoriously difficult to get affordable, competent garden help. So if you expand the garden are *YOU* willing to get down on your hands and knees and do the necessary work?

It means we’ve hired a competent gardener to help with weeding a few times a year and I do the maintenance in the middle of her visits.

This is a great list of ground covers for your zone.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/gardening-by-zone/zone-8/zone-8-groundcover-plants.htm

I need to wait for sun to move as it’s making pics impossible. I was hoping that as we expand the garden we do so in a way that allows plants to spread out and excessive weeding isn’t needed. Kind of creating a carpet of plants with various things including possibly hostas, small shrubs, pachysandra, etc. Just walked by this garden and we would never get it this dense I suspect but I do love it.

Lyn yes this type of thing for sure.

till it up and get started, this is the best time of year to plant, time for things to get established before winter, and if you choose evergreen, you won't look like you are starting something new.

We are having a heatwave so I’ll likely wait a couple of weeks but I would like to make some progress before spring. Even if it’s just adding some boxwoods along the grass line closet to the house and getting some ground cover in parts. I’m still not sure what to do with edge by road though. Sun has moved a bit so here’s a better pic.

Don't till, use a sod cutter or dig it up manually. Tilling will just incorporate grass and weed roots/seeds into the soil and make weeding more of a project down the road.

Weeding a prepared planting bed is not really a big deal, if you keep on top of it. If you mulch well and have lots of plants to fill in, weeds tend to become a pretty minor problem.

Last time when it was a big patch we paid a gardener to come remove the sod. Well worth it.

Celery love this. I hadn’t even considered staring in that spot but it actually makes great sense.

My method is to lay cardboard or thick newspaper on top of the grass, wet it and cover with arborist’s woodchips. This will prepare the bed fpr planting next season. You can plant now by poking holes into the cardboard. You won’t have a weed problem if you plant densely enough to keep the ground shaded. I like your sample and would keep going with it.

If you have water issues where you live, have you considered xeriscaping?

We have water restrictions for lawns only not gardens.

Since this is a prominent front yard, consider consulting with a landscape designer.

Maybe incorporate some boulders. Leave room for garden flagstone paths throughout.

Flagstone is fairly not inline with anything else we’ve done. But boulders is an interesting thought.

Hopefully you leave some mulched or paved areas and not have solid plantings as having some negative space looks better and gives you room to do the inevitable plant chores. In a much different climate but I love our lawn free yards!

Agreed. It can’t be wall to wall plants but with mature plants and them spreading out the weeding lessens a bit. We’ve just been away a couple of weeks so it was a task to get out there tomorrow and get rid of all the wretched morning glory!

I love designing with landscape boulders. They require no watering, no fertilizing, and no pruning, deadheading or dividing!! Perfect for low maintenance :-))

I also like to create some contours and additional interest in what are typically flat yards by using berms or low mounds. The boulders look very natural tucked into the berm here and there and are conducive to display spreading or cascading plats.

Also smart not to overplant as noted. That requires pruning or dividing too frequently. Negative space is a good thing.

Just circling back to one part of my question which is how to deal with the area Curbside. Since this is technically district land I don’t want to invest a ton in planting right to the curb because they don’t replace or treat well if there are any issues. Would pulling out the grass and putting rocks make sense? Or maybe large pavers and rocks?

What about low water ground cover? You can smother the lawn with cardboard as suggested.

Then plant beach strawberry, chamomile, creeping thyme.... they will keep weeds from coming up and can be mowed to a low height like 4" or weed-whacked.

Poke holes, cardboard and newspaper is bio-degrabable, they use soy-based inks, and as it degrades the groundcover will root and spread. Once established, they are hardy enough to survive being disturbed at the curbside or walked on.

Great flowers for pollinators.

That would be costly to replace if the district needed to work on the area. I’m hesitant to put plants there that they could remove and damage

I would marke the district property and leave it as grass/lawn. Don't add anything that you may be asked to remove.

as for the driveway, I would put a short tufted grass to define the edge, it's part of the garden, but not so high it obstructs the view/approach along the driveway.

It’s the ugliest part of the grass though. One of the biggest reasons we want a change is that edge lol! Lyn what do you think of Celery’s idea above tackling the front corner a bit?

It's not that the plants would need to be replaced at the district area, the lawn replacement plants I mentioned all have runners that would grow back in easily on their own. That's how they srpead and make good groundcover.

The district can come and dig up the entire area if they want. They did a few summers ago to repair a curb and they didn’t even put grass back in. That’s my concern

Then I would not use rock, they would spread it everywhere and you would have to separate it back out again. Mulch the area and plant nothing.

Grass is better than mulch which will get all over shoes.

I much prefer the idea of rocks bordering the curbside rather than any groundcovers. It makes a clean, tidy edge and no worries about them being disturbed should they need to work in that area.

Also, there is enough space to be planted with the lawn removal that cutting down on plant quantities may be a financial relief......plants - even groundcovers - get expensive. And they would fit in with any landscape boulders, should you decide to use them.

Make sure they are larger rocks like river rock (2-4 inch diameter or so), not just gravel, and do lay landscape fabric underneath.

I woud think it depends on how carefully the district workers remove any rock or other hardscape and if they even bother to place it back in good order.

"we would never get it this dense I suspect but I do love it."

The pictured bed is mostly Bergenia and Lily of the Valley which are both tough, disease resistant spreaders. So it's not hard to get that density. There are also Hostas which I imagine are pretty tough where you are.

We would never get the whole garden this sense because the rest of the garden isn’t like this. We’ve landed on just expanding what we have by a few feet around the existing garden and actually focusing on drought resistant type plants in the hopes of not needing to shift the irrigation system right away. As for the remainder of the grass, the fall plan is to see if we can get some more grass and clover to grow and wait till spring. So small changes for now. But I will be coming back to this thread in the spring for ideas again!

You mentioned water restrictions. In our area, California, it's better to plant or reseed in the Fall, so plants' roots can become established by Winter rains.

Not worried about it. I live in Vancouver and it’s going to rain Marci through May and likely June. Our restrictions are also for lawns only.

Look into using native plants to your area. They will want to spread, and in a relatively short time they'll be butted up against each other and no weeds will grow. My sister and I have both done this (not the same houses) and even in the second year it's surprising how few weeds can compete with the native plants. I have a mix of native and non-native because I'm still working on getting rid of my invasive non-natives like vinca. My sister's are 100% native. We're in Toronto.

For example, wild strawberry is a fantastic native ground cover. Unlike things like non-native pachysandra and lily of the valley, it won't harm your wild areas if it it spread by birds etc. The birds and butterflies we're getting are so great.

As far as design, in my front yard I have a 4 foot path that goes through the yard, so I can walk through and enjoy it. It curves from the sidewalk to the driveway near my door. There's also a path of flagstones, just laid on the soil, through the middle of the deepest bed, so I can get through and weed when needed. Soon I won't need it.

In my back yard, the re is an oval of grass in the middle with plants all around.

I have also replaced the city allowance with plants. It used to have the worst weedy grass. If the city needs to dig it up, I can move the plants and replant them. Nothing there has deep roots. For example, black eyed Susans which are shallow rooted and transplant easily. Also easily grown from seed and grow fast.

Consider joining a local facebook group dedicated to native plants and you'll get lots of great ideas, and even plant sharing.