For a variety of reasons, my lawn is wrecked and needs a fresh start. As I contemplate the prospect of reseeding or laying sod, installing a sprinkler system and then committing to year after year of dumping bazillions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground to battle the weeds and keep those precious green blades alive while they sit cooking in the ever increasing heat of the sun, and then cut them every week to keep them the acceptable length... I can't help but wonder - Can I just opt out?

I live in a typical NJ neighborhood with a 1/4 acre lot - some trees/shade, some full sun. It's a pretty chill neighborhood - some neighbors have beautiful sod/chem-lawns, others have embraced a more casual grass/clover/crabgrass approach. No-one has gone for a true lawn-alternative yet.

From my initial research it seems there are lots of options out there (clover, thyme, fescue, Bermuda grass, wildflowers, stone...) but most of the information seems geared to western/ southwestern states - it's hard to tell what might work in our NJ climate.

I also want to keep my (mostly lovely) NJ neighbors in mind. I am OK being a nonconformist, but don't want to be "that house" that everyone hates because my weird yard is perceived as an eyesore.

What do you all think might work in a NJ neighborhood... that won't make my NJ neighbors hate me? Has anyone made the switch yet? How did it work out?

We have a front yard and back yard with grass and would like something else. Backyard lawn needs to be resilient as we have three dogs that love running around.

I've been doing a ton of research of how to install either a clover lawn or replace my mostly dead grass with other native plants.

I want something as sustainable as possible, and attract pollinators. I don't mind throwing some money at it, but I'm getting overwhelmed on understanding the step by step process of how to do this.

Here's an example of a seed I found that I really love posted by another new jersian: https://ptlawnseed.com/collections/flowering/products/fleur-de-lawn

Do I need to pull up my grass? If so, where do I start? Does my grass need to come up at all, or can I plant in between what seems pretty dead? What type of soil do I out down to create a wildflower bed and how do I prep the surface? It's these types of questions I'm getting an overload of information on and I just need some help understanding.

I have had landscapers coming by to talk about it, but the conversation ends up that they think it's only worth maybe reseeding grass or installing sod, but I don't want to spend a ton of money just to go backwards in my goals. I had one today tell me he thinks there's too much sun in my front yard for clover to thrive, but I thought clover (ex. white clover) did extremely well in lots of sunlight?

Does anyone have any steps they used in order to successfully growing a yard with these goals? If so, what was your process and tools used along the way?

Thank you so much for your input! This is very important to me and I feel like I'm gradually losing my mind, lol.

TLDR; I want a sustainable lawn/yard that moves away from, or isn't, grass and am seeking help understanding the steps in how to do so. (open to native grasses maybe, pollinator friendly things).

Edit: my question isn't revolving so much on designing my space, but rather that I am spending the money I have on doing the steps right the first time around in establishing the plants/goals that I seek in the first place.

I’ve seen a lot of options for native ground covers. But I’m curious what options their are for native, minimal maintenance lawns that the dogs and kids can go outside and play on? FB recently recommended red creeping thyme as an alternative to grass. But this is native to Europe. I would like to add that I don’t currently own a home so I don’t have specifics for yard conditions. But I will be purchasing a home next year and plan on planting natives.

I'm interested in removing my front lawn and putting in native plants & drought resistant plants instead. I guess you could call it non-grass landscaping or maybe alternative landscaping. Something like this: New Jersey Native Plants, Landscaping Design (jerseyyards.org)

Does anyone know of any additional resources or companies to get started with a project like this?