Front yard from late winter thriugh spring to late summer. You can have both tidy, ornamental and no lawn. Sacramento Zone 9B

What my lawn looked like in late February through now. If Reddit allowed it I could upload 40 photos. The photos are not in exact order but the last 4-5 pics are the most recent.

Most of these flowers are annuals. They really show off mid spring but being in California by early summer it is mostly dry brown and too tall for my liking so I mow it all down and mulch the clippings creating a nice layer of straw like organic matter. The mulching mower will also cause the seeds to disperse reseeding everything. When I mowed this down in mid June it did not look pretty. Looked brown, dead with layers of of yellow clippings/plant material everywhere. But it rebounds fast like within a month. The creeping thyme groundcover regrows thickens up and fill out spaces. The annuals I mowed down are regrowing. Mowing it all down revitalizes everything making them grow like perennials. The jacaranda tree provides shade and dappled sun.

Everything that is regrowing will be in bloom again by early fall with some flowers lasting into December. Like I said you can have greenery without a lawn. Once you've established some groundcover and easily reseeding annuals it's just mowing, watering a little and providing them some summer shade/dappled sunlight.