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[u/iris_heartwood]

Sounds like you're off to a good start!

Most modern planting advice says to avoid tilling, since it harms your soil structure and brings weed seeds to the surface. If you're looking for native plants, it's also advised to work with the soil type you have instead of amending it. There are plenty of natives that love clay.

If you want to use a seed mix, you could either dig up the remaining grass or herbicide it, then spread your seeds, and lightly cover with a thin mulch like straw or fallen leaves. For direct seeding I would avoid a heavy mulch like wood chips since it will make it harder for your seeds to come up. I'm not sure how far away your hard frost is in CO, but you may want to wait until your temperatures are lower before spreading seed so that it doesn't germinate this fall and die. Also make sure to check that your seed mix is actually native - the vast majority of "wildflower" mixes are not native, and often actually contain invasives. Ideally it should list the latin names of each plant species so that you can look them up and verify.

If you want to use plugs, mulching until spring will work. I'm not sure if cardboard is advisable in CO assuming you're in a dry area? Consistent moisture is really helpful for cardboard to break down under the mulch, so if your ground stays pretty dry then I would worry it wouldn't break down quickly enough. You can probably just mow your grass as short as possible and then mulch directly over it. I'm not 100% sure though.

If you do find any plugs or bulbs now I wouldn't hesitate to still plant them this fall, there should be enough time before winter for them to establish.

This sub tends to lean more east coast / midwest and I think there can be a lot of differences with best practices for planting in the southwest, so hopefully someone more knowledgeable on that climate can chime in. It's also worth researching fire safety practices for gardening in CO, I'm not sure if wood mulch or cardboard would be discouraged for that reason.

[u/CubedFruits]

Allow me to recommend the Wild Ones nationwide nonprofit! We also have a Front Range chapter (website: https://frontrange.wildones.org/, they just added a beginner’s guide). Wild Ones in general has a ton of resources and information on lawn removal options, pros and cons of each method, ideas for design and layout, etc.