I found this book by Liz Primeau at Amazon, and loved the ideas contained in it. The full title is FRONT YARD GARDENS: GROWING MORE THAN GRASS.

While most of the information, and the garden pictures as well, are from the Ontario Canada area, and thus of interest to many of the Hosta Forum people from there, the process of ridding the front yard of LAWN is universally the same.

I think you will love to explore the option of stealing space from a grassy lawn. By the time you are finished reading this informative book (an inch thick and well illustrated before and after in many cases) the possibility of making such a change yourself will not seem so foreign.

Every plant used is identified, it seems. EXCEPT....every hosta is only identified as a HOSTA....sigh....so you have to recognize what the cultivar is if you like it specifically. Otherwise, just find a similar variegated hosta. But of the gardens from the Ontario area which are shown, 9 out of 10 of them do grow hosta prominently.

For myself, I enjoyed all the cottage homes with full plantings and no lawn. I have my imagination stirred to the possible changes to our front garden. Our front faces WEST, and hosta cannot survive in such an exposure in our garden zone, but the grass is sure a bust there, so what else might do better!

If you have a chance to read this book, or at least look at the pictures, I'm sure it is in Ontario libraries since the updated edition came out in 2010. Not available as an e-book. Published by Firefly Books in Canada and the US, in an Updated and Expanded version, 256 pages.

Oh, there is a nod to southern gardens that I noticed....like one in Natchez MS, and I think Austin TX, but not many other places outside Canada.

It sort of reminds me of McTavish and Josephine and a few other above-the-border gardeners. Give it a look. I think even DonB in Colorado will be inclined to take a few more inches off his shrinking lawn. :)