I have many references that I can share with you. Here are a few before-and-after pictures from yards I have worked on.
Example # 1
Many of my jobs start with a lot of cleanup -- here I removed invasive English Ivy and pruned back some scraggly shrubs.
Just after planting: the bed now includes black-eyed susans, butterfly weed, native grasses, and spring wildflowers.
Example #2
After having a patio installed, this family was left with a dirt pile in the corner of their yard.
Just after planting: the new bed includes winterberries and native grasses as the main structural elements. The front edge of the bed is designed to absorb some runoff from the patio, with water-loving plants like cardinal flower.
A year and a half later, the garden is filling out, with switchgrass and winterberry shrubs thriving even after the drought of 2007. The plants didn't receive any supplemental water.