Instead of rotating plants every season, I think we should put in evergreens: hollies and junipers. We could put in a few annuals directly under the sign as needed. Hundreds of dollars have been spent on plants each year. That seems like a tremendous waste.

I wonder why just having grass around the sign isn't good enough.  I have seen neighborhoods that just had grass around the sign, and they looked fine.  If I'm being told that my annual assessment is going up because of rising costs, then I only have one response:  Grass is cheap, and if someone wants to pay their own money to put out flowers then I won't stop them.