You could try checking out Las Pilitas Nursery ( http://www.laspilitas.com/ ); it has quite an extensive database for native plants--including a native plant "finder" that will find something that suits your situation (though planting in proximity to the lawn might pose some issues from competition for nutrients). My personal favorites for California native plants are (as my ID indicates) Manzanitas (which aren't quite suitable to be placed nearby the lawn), California Fuchsias (these can be planted closer to the lawn if you want), Monkeyflowers (Mimulus guttatus can live nearby the lawn, being that it lives in riparian habitats in the wild), and Sages (there's so many aromatic sages in California, with some species capable of tolerating more water). California has quite diverse climate that produces various natives suitable for a multitude of environments; there's probably something that can work for you. This post was edited by CAManzanita on Mon, Sep 2, 13 at 19:21

"Lowcountry represents Charleston/ Beaufort/ Summerville/ Hilton Head and surrounding areas. Between the Upcountry and Lowcountry you have the Midlands." That is exactly it, at least in its usage in SC. Why the coastal Georgetown/Myrtle Beach area is not usually called "Low Country" I'm not quite sure, but it usually is not. Myrtle Beach is too new to have an old colonial-era designation but Georgetown is plenty old enough. Big sprawling live oaks are probably the archetypical view of old-time low country.

Black Hills Spruce is a white spruce that should be easy to find at nurseries in the metro area. I'd pass on the CO Spruce. Disease prone. Abies concolor is a nice fir and more adaptable, I think, than the Balsam fir. They are a little hard to find. Juniper 'Blue Star' is a very nice plant. Great silvery, blue color that gets a purplish cast in the winter.

What you say about "end(ing) up with something that looks like the surrounding countryside that you didn't do anything to . . .pretty futile" is an interesting comment. I visited a show on the history of land use at the Museum of New Hampshire History on Wed. One of the points made was that the white settlers felt they were within their rights in taking much of the land the Indians (Native Americans)claimed because the Indians had not changed the land enough to make it theirs. Had not cut down the forests, farmed the land, made roads, and so on. Their European ethic was that to "own" the land, you must change it appreciably. Not so different, on a deep level, from what we do today. Planting all natives may feel like we are not changing the land appreciably; it doesn't look enough like we have "done" enough to make it ours.. I remember seeing a slide show several years ago that accompanied a lecture by a developer who had designed suburban cluster homes leaving nearly all of the trees, dividing up the lots and laying out the driveways to maximize privacy and minimize damage to the land. I agreed with the design principles, but the outcome was unsettling; the road through the development looked like a lonely road thru the woods; the houses were dark and in deep shadows as they were surrounded by tall trees, small holes having been cut out of the forest to put the houses down on. It seemed rather gloomy and isolated. I think a great many of us need to see evidence that the land has been changed by our hands in order to feel comfortable aesthetically. I plant natives and encourage others to do so to for many reasons. Also plant and love introduced plants. G.