Southwest Home and Garden Thread

[HX_Guy]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

Ah damn it, is it!?

Yeah, it is.

http://10thingswrongwithenvironmenta...ryana-and.html

[PHX31]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Yeah, it is.

http://10thingswrongwithenvironmenta...ryana-and.html

I'll never walk my dogs to the circle park again if there is one of those trees nearby.

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Are you set on that Flowering Pear? While they look beautiful when they bloom, the scent they put out is awful and nauseating.

We had several evergreen pear trees at our last house. The scent was not particularly pleasant but I wouldn't describe it as awful or nauseating.

[KEVINphx]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

I will, I have an awesome landscapping guy helping me out who has his masters in landscape architecture from ASU. The nice thing about the planning app I used is its all to scale. You can put in the dimensions of the yard and the plants, so you know how much space everything will take.

I'm likely going to be doing both a rain water capture as well as greywater system as well to reduce H20 needs.

That is good - BUT I would still question if these are the actual mature sizes of these trees.

Like I said again, unless you severely restrict the canopy there is NO way that is as large as a desert willow will get.

Your pecan can/may get larger than that too - my mother's house by the Biltmore has a mature (50+ year old) pecan and it is easily 40-50+ foot canopy. I have a neighbor with a desert willow that is easily 35+ canopy as well. . .

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

My fiancee isn't a big fan of the desert (I love it), so we're going for a messy/lush English garden kinda vibe, we'll see how that works out. This is something thats going to be done in phases over a very long period of time.

Our next door neighbor has a Purple Orchid and a Jacaranda in his front yard. He doesn't water the Purple Orchid properly, it should actually be much bigger.

[nickw252]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

Our next door neighbor has a Purple Orchid and a Jacaranda in his front yard. He doesn't water the Purple Orchid properly, it should actually be much bigger.

Paul, is that a Hong Kong Or hid your neighbor has? We're re-doing our back yard and putting two Hong Kong Orchids in. Should your neighbor be watering it a lot more?

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by nickw252

Paul, is that a Hong Kong Or hid your neighbor has? We're re-doing our back yard and putting two Hong Kong Orchids in. Should your neighbor be watering it a lot more?

I guess I don't know the difference, my wife thought it was Purple Orchid, but you may be right. The man tends to underwater everything, he has no lawn sprinklers and everything there tends to look thirsty.

[nickw252]

I recently started work on completely re-doing my back yard and removing my pool, see the pictures below.

When we bought the house the back yard wasn't in great shape. The fence along one of the walls was in poor condition and the pool and pool-decking were on the older side. My wife and I didn't really care for the location (no shade), size, or shape of the pool, and didn't want to put money into fixing it up. Moreover, we have a toddler which makes it difficult to use the back yard without a fence around the pool. We ended up deciding to take it out entirely. We're replacing it with:
- a smaller brick patio,
- brick sidewalk from the driveway,
- a built in fire-pit,
- a kid's play area,
- two Hong Kong Orchid trees for shade over the new patio and windows on the back of the house (24" Boxes - the same tree that's in PBenjamin's post above),
- and new sod.

Here is the progress so far:












/\/\ I recently put the steel door in and have since painted it to match the garage.

Empty Pool:



Full pool:





I'll post more pictures as the project progresses.

[PHX31]

How did they get all the dirt in there? That's pretty crazy to get rid of a pool in AZ!

Keep up the pics.

[nickw252]

Originally Posted by PHX31

How did they get all the dirt in there? That's pretty crazy to get rid of a pool in AZ!

Keep up the pics.

The pool was getting old and needed work, we never used it, we didn't like its location or shape, there was no shade, and most of all, we have a young child that we didn't want to fall in. I think we're going to use the back yard a lot more once this is done.

[HX_Guy]

Looking good! Love me some pavers!

[nickw252]

Sidewalk was done today

[nickw252]

[nickw252]

Back yard was finished last week. Here are some pics.

[pbenjamin]

Very nice.

[PHX31]

That was fast... looks good!

[HX_Guy]

Yeah that came out looking great! What kind of trees are those?

[nickw252]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Yeah that came out looking great! What kind of trees are those?

Two24" box Hong Kong orchids by the patio. They are about 10' tall. The one in the corner is a 24" box Fan-Tex Ash. Along the wall are yellow oleander.

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by nickw252

Two24" box Hong Kong orchids by the patio. They are about 10' tall. The one in the corner is a 24" box Fan-Tex Ash. Along the wall are yellow oleander.

By the way, my neighbor's Hong Kong Orchid (if that is what it is) now has its annual crop of seed pods, which are usually about 9" long. When they drop we will get an influx of pigeons who apparently consider them a delicacy.

[nickw252]

Does anyone have any suggestions or referrals for an interior designer, specifically someone who does curtains?