Two years ago, during the spring following purchasing our house, I tore out the front planter of our house and began replanting with natives for the Western New York area.

Historically, because of the glaciation that basically scraped us down to bedrock, the entire region has been a successional landscape of northern forests and what my botanist friend likes to call prairie peninsulas, wind driven dispersal of Midwestern prairie plants traveling up the moraines of retreating glaciers. (I find the deep history of this area amazing is you can't tell...)

Anyway, since most of my neighbors gardens consist of arborvitae, hosts, and boxwood, I wanted to use my front yard as basically a demonstration area to show that natives don't equal weedy! But I am lacking in the organizational/landscaping side of things.

At this point, I have:

BACK:

two dwarf oakleaf hydrangeas (white flower spikes) - still small, got hit hard by our weather last winter

Viburnum nudum centered (white flowers, dark red berries in late fall)

Solomon's Seal (filling in between hyd. and vibe)

MID:

Virginia Bluebells in spring(mostly have died back at this point)

Cinnamon Fern (planted last year, already starting to fill in a bit of a patch in the center

Heuchera (in large patches on the edges)

Rudbeckia hirta (ended up taller than I was thinking in the spring, probably will be moving them to the right in a clump by the front stairs

FRONT:

Tiarella (centered)

Columbine (flanking tiarella)

Also, last year, I planted several bunchberry dogwood and wintergreen, but neither really took, then we got hit with unbelievably cold and snowy weather (even by everyone's impression of Buffalo weather), but they are still holding on.

FAR LEFT: The run off from the gutter drains into a gravel area that I've over-planted with sedum. And around the corner is the only remaining vestige of the original garden, a rhododendron, that is surprisingly well behaved and has remained small.

FAR RIGHT: next to the driveway gets more sun than the rest so I've started filling the area with Asclepius tuberosa and started training a Dutchman's Pipe up the railing.

So any thoughts on organizing or additions. Thoughts on clumps of plants vs drifts?

Most of the plants have only been in for a year or less, so a lot of space will disappear as they mature, but suggestions before that happens would be great.

Thanks!