55 gal plants suggestion

Ideally, if you intend to go 'low-tech' get yourself a 2X55 CF light kit. One 55 tube on each side of your top frame, as long as it's CF(compact fluorescent) with decent reflectors, will grow many different varieties of green plants for you and some Lotus and Crypts which are found in red, pink and bronze shades for extra color.
With that set-up you won't need CO2 or a lot of nutrient dosing to develop a nicely planted tank.
Currently, I'm developing a tank full of Anubia, Cryptocoryne, Val., and Java Fern under the above lighting. Anubia grows like crazy in my tanks under 2watts/gal.
I do use CO2, but it will grow well, but slower without gas.

Len

Carpet type plants for the foreground that don't require super bright light are dwarf chain swords and dwarf vals. Sword plants are unmatched as centepiece plants. Ozelot sword adds a slight reddish color and black spots, looks great. Regular green swords are good too. Most bunch plants should be planted in groups, ludwigea rubens and rotala indica will give you red/pink color. Anacharis and hornwort are very hardy. brazilian pennywort is an interesting plant with lots of lily pad type leaves. Crypts are a must have in a lower-medium light set up, I like red wendtii. Driftwood is a good addition to a planted tank. Java fern attached to a branch of drift wood, and anubias nanas on pieces of diftwood around the tank. Java moss can be trained to grow over rocks and driftwood in between the anubia and java fern.

What kind of fish are you keeping in there?

just don't put any crayfish in there whatever you do.

What type of substrate do you have (or are you planning to have) in there?

If you want some tall background plants..and I'm assuming low light here...try some corkscrew val. At least it said corkscrew val when I bought it. Reverix suggested that it was contortion val...I may have both..and are doing very well. Even some straight val. Not growing as fast, but it's doing ok. My red wendti crypt is wonderful. My amazon sword had a setback with the salt treatment for ich, but is coming back.
I stapled all my java moss to my driftwood. I had seen suggested to either staple it or tie it with cotton thread and it would be rooted by the time the thread came off...wrong answer. The thread fell apart all over the place and I had plants all over the place. The staples will rust out with time, and I have had to restaple a few pieces here and there, but as a whole I'm pleased with the results. And you can pull staples out with the tip of a knofe if you need to remove. It was a major hassle to tie on with thread...stapling much easier.
And all I used was one of those little mini stapler.

If you go with > 2 wpg, Didiplis diandra (blood stargrass, waterhedge) is a pretty plant. Other than that, everyone else has listed most of the plants I've tried.

Nursie--that's weird about your thread falling apart. Mine hasn't yet after a couple of months. I'm not looking forward to ever using thread again, though. I had to remove the driftwood from my tank to be able to work with it (I have a relatively deep tank at 24"). I'll definitely have to try the staples when I add plants with fish already in the tank.