I could probably spend hours hiking around the Kansas Flint Hills with my eyeballs peeled to the ground checking out plants to mark for seed collection, etc WoodsTea. It would be fun to work on a landscape project there, do it all in local natives, I'd stay purist in that situation. Somehow living in central OKC close to downtown surrounded by miles of metroplex doesn't draw out the same sense of native purity.........Hope your mom gets to come home. Mine didn't. Very sad.

I say Flint Hills but she is a townie. I doubt I'll have an opportunity to do anything large scale, but there are some things that need replacement. One side of the yard has a row of Rose of Sharon shrubs that have grown enormous over years of constant irrigation and fertilization. They're a problem for the neighbor since they're close to his drive, so I think we'll be cutting those out. It's possibly a good fit for a collection of grasses like P. virgatum 'Northwind' that would continue to provide some screening value for a good part of the year. The location, which is southwest of the house, might make for some good backlighting during late fall/winter afternoons.

There's also a vegetable garden in back with a series of raised beds with gravel walkways in between them. I might leave all the beds in place and just put some natives in there. It'd be fairly low effort and a future owner could go back to vegetables without too much trouble.

An herb garden of thyme and others might work well in the raised beds , too. They won't take a lot of upkeep or constant replacing.