I've seen simple transitions between mowed (close to the house) and unmowed. While it works, it's uninspired. Maybe get bulk wildflower seeds:
http://www.americanmeadows.com/wildflower-seeds/bulk-wildflower-seeds

Another possibility is to blanket the area with trees. Bulk seedlings can be purchased for a very reasonable amount. Of course it takes a while, but pines grow pretty fast.
http://www.engelsnursery.com/catalogue.cfm

I'm with you - I wouldn't want to spend that many hours a week mowing the lawn. I second Dreaming's suggestions of either trees or flowers (or both).

I also wouldn't put in a sprinkler system. Once grass gets established, it doesn't need to be watered - it is meant to go dormant. Our neighbors have a sprinkler system, and if we go through a dry spell, their lawn looks lush and green (and gets mowed every few days); ours goes dry. But when it rains again, ours perks right up, and looks as good as the neighbor's.

We plan to use wild flowers and ground cover, along with some bushes and small trees near the wooded area. We have just over an acre.

This post was edited by AnitaLadyRose on Wed, May 28, 14 at 18:48

Congrats on deciding not to mow it all...it's a very green approach. If you mow the meadow twice a year, you should be able to keep it under control. Be careful though with wild flowers...you don't want anything that makes a thick stem that makes it hard to mow. We have to try and mow ours before the golden rod hits which makes mowing difficult.

If you want, a split rail fence or some other markings may help to keep it visually separated from the lawn.

Our house was built next to wetlands so we need to demarcate the wetlands area which we did with large boulders. Eventually, I'd like to add birdhouses as a way of marking off the meadow from the lawn.

This post was edited by AnnieDeighnaugh on Wed, May 28, 14 at 14:18

Thanks for the input so far!

Yes Annie, we are aware we will need to have it mowed by a substantial mower twice a year. The builders told us, then the landscapers re-iterated it. So we are definitely planning for that. The only other neighbor in the neighborhood also has a wild area in the form of an island shape but it's in their back yard....front is all manicured. So I wasn't sure how it would be incorporated in the front to still look ok. I was also thinking about wildflower seeds but the landscaper said we'd have to weed. No thanks. It's not pleasant enough growth to want to walk around and weed in. I'll have plenty of weeding to do in my landscaped beds.

There are many counties that have anti neglect ordinances that would not allow you to keep a "meadow" unmown. Be sure that whomever enforces things like that in your area is on board with what you plan. Unfortunately, my municipality wants all of our acreage mown or they will issue a citation, and eventually mow it and charge the fees to us. Luckily, I do have the right equipment to make sure that I don't spend more than two hours every 10 days or so doing that chore. Buy a smaller real tractor with a finish mower and bush hog instead of a lawn tractor. It is one of the best investments that anyone owning acreage can have.

Most of our 7 acres is wooded, and we plan to keep it that way. We pushed the woods back about 50' from the house, and will keep a regular lawn in that area. The approach to our property is rough pasture right now. I'd like to plow it, till it, and plant a regular pasture grass. I'll mow it a few times a year. Technically, it is in the SC building codes that you have to keep residential properties mowed, but they ignore it except in the cities and nicer suburbs. It's assumed that if you have acreage, some of it will be pasture unless you have an HOA that has stricter rules.

A friend of mine built in the woods about 6 years ago, and didn't like the look of the lawn ending with an abruptly chopped out hole in the woods. But in a few years, the trees and bushes have spread out, softening the edge of the woods to look a lot more natural. Mother Nature will push her way back in, given a chance. The main thing is to avoid brush and vines, which are hard to maintain. Either pasture, or woods.

What sort of zoning are you in?

I can't imagine paying real estate taxes, paying to mow, paying to bushhog, etc all on a bunch of land and basically doing nothing with it. Do something with it.

Plant fruit trees.Plant some nut trees. Pasture animals. Create a formal garden. Dig a pond. There are a ton of things you could do here.

Consider prairie grass. There are some very pretty short prairie grasses. Check out Blaze little blue stem prairie grass. We are close to stockseedfarms and this is one of their prettiest grasses!

I think there are all sort of options you can do in the front that are creative and don't involve lawn and can be low maintenance. Those of us in the hot parts of the country are used to this, as lawns make absolutely no sense here. Google or Pinterest "lawn free yard."

thanks for the additional input: responses:

First of all, I would not say we are doing "nothing" with our land. We are going to have significant landscaping and a nice lawn. We are planting plenty of trees, gardens, and beds, with stone patios, stacked stone steps, bouldered retaining walls, etc. It will be very nice when we are finally done.

Second, our HOA only requires 40 feet of maintained grass lawn between the road and the residence. We will exceed that by a few times over.

We also have quite a bit of woods on the back of the property which won't be part of our maintained lawns.

I like the options of prairie grasses, wild flowers etc.

Farm animals are expressly prohibited by our HOA. Which is a rule I am happy to abide by and expect the same from my neighbors :)

I'm not good at visualizing that's why I was asking for ideas to achieve what I want. I'm guessing the landscaper will have it mapped out for me with his plan too....just looking for other ideas.

Look into native prairie restoration for that area. It will provide some habitat for birds and small animals and is relatively low maintenance except for mowing 1-2 times per year. A small property under 2 acres doesn't allow enough room to pasture any animals, unless you want a few free-range chickens!

You might also look into no-mow grass...it's a fine grass that gets only so long and then kind of flops over, so it's green and soft.

{{gwi:1442835}}

My lawn is small but has to be maintained so my mum has planted olive plants and a mango tree too.

Haha one large sandbox.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sand-scaping

I am in Texas and we hired a person by the name of David Mahler to do our landscaping--we have 4 acres. David designed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. Below is his site. Maybe you can get some ideas from it. He is very into using natives, low maintenance, and no water plants. He has been doing this for many years.

Here is a link that might be useful: Environmental Survey

We have mandatory tree save areas on the lot on which we recently concluded building. We worked with our builder to save as much woodland as possible, not just the mandatory minimum. I reckon that just under half of our 1.74 acres remains "wild" (NC Piedmont pine forest and all that entails).

[Transitional Landscape[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/transitional-landscaping-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_728~s_2112) by New York Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers Todd Haiman Landscape Design

This is very similar to what we had at our last house. We had ten acres with about half of it being treed with a big creek. We made a walking/ATV trail through the property which was way too rocky to really do anything else with.

There were about two acres just around the house that needed mowing when we moved in which DH did by hand until one of our super generous neighbors gave him their old rider when they bought a new one. We decided it was still too much to mow so we put in a huge garden and pond to catch the springs going through that part of the property.

We decided to fill in the other areas with native prairie grass and wildflowers we bought from Stock Seed Farms which has an online store and is located in Nebraska. They specicialize in native plants for the Midwest so make sure you know what is native to your area. We would burn it in early every Spring to keep the area looking nice and only mowed trails through it. If you don't burn it the area will become very thick and that I'm guessing is why they told you about the weeding.

It was always nice to look at. If you do go with some wildflowers make sure to get a mix of annuals and perennials so some come up the first year. Some of the perennials may take a few years to bloom.