Well, your situation, husband, yard, etc. sound like mine a few years back. My husband was reluctant to plant anything in the way that he would have to mow around. After 20 years of mowing all Saturday, his tune changed and we planted a rather large native shrub border a couple of years ago. I did lots of research including coming here (there used to be many more people posting. I bought books by Dirr, etc. I ended starting by buying one shrub of the types that I wanted from a native plant nursery. These were probably 4' shrubs when I bought them and fairly expensive. I planted them and prepared a huge border that fall. The following spring, I bought shrubs from the NH nursery (I'll link the site below) in groups of 10 or 20. After much research, I decided to plant them as they would grow naturally with species together in drifts . My border is irregular in shape. I planted serviceberries (4 or 5 different types), lots of viburnums (American cranberry, wild raisin, arrowwood, etc) native hollies, many varieties of dogwood (pagoda, red twig, yellow twig), elderberries, bayberries, hemlock, etc. I have a big wind problem here and have planted shrub dogwoods to break that wind. They can be chopped periodically and grow right back in a few years. I would suggest places that sell the shrubs relatively cheaply as you want a few in a clump. I found NH Nursery give very good value for the money. Most of the things I got from them were fairly large. Good luck. I also bought things from Pine Ridge (Arkansas), Cold Stream Farm (Michigan) and a place in NY (upstate) whose name escapes me at the moment.

Here is a link that might be useful: NH Nursery