Xeriscaping Ideas for the Southwestern Regions
Every home remodel, new home, or new building needs Landscaping to finalize the project and make it beautiful. It’s what makes the building, the exterior, and the overall project beautiful. Xeriscaping & Landscaping design is done to complement the architectural style of the home. Landscape Designers and Landscape Architects often provide excellent ideas in residential and small commercial landscaping – such as landscape design, exterior environments, backyards, and residential landscapes. A good landscape designer should be extremely considerate of upfront installation costs, yearly maintenance costs, and long term sustainability.
My speciality stems from many years in Phoenix, where upfront costs were negligible, and the yearly maintenance costs (i.e. water bills, landscape maintenance, etc.) were slim to none. Hence came the important aspects of water-friendly, low-maintenance and xeriscaped landscapes for the Southwestern regions. The term Xeriscape was one of the most popular and most landscape friendly styles for the dry desert climate where water was scare. Many new and existing homes are not allowed to have grass; in fact, in some cities, cash rebates are offered to convert high-water consuming turf to desert landscaping or xeriscaping. Xeriscaping has been a very popular method of landscaping, and landscape designers have adapted this style for many of their clients.
As a Phoenix landscaping company, our expert designers in landscaping can provide many techniques and ideas of xeriscaping. From Sonoran landscapes, which may include cacti, saguaros, and ocotillos to SW Xeriscapes that may include many mid-level desert landscapes that can’t quite bear the hot AZ summers. Desert landscaping & Xeriscaping often include many of these following types of plant species:
- Traditional Color Plants – These xeriscaping plants are standard, normal xeriscaping plants that require standard water useage. These plants often have long bloom seasons, lots of flowers, and attract hummingbirds. Some common species that landscapers love are the cherry and russian sages, Echinacea, gaillardia, gayfeather, iris, lamb’s ears, yarrows, asters, columbines, or coreopsis.
- Arizona Desert Plants – Many of the species above would not sustain an Arizona summer, which is the reason for a secondary list of Arizona xeriscaping plants. Red Bird of Paradise, Arizona Yellow Bells, Orange Jubilee, Texas Sage, Baja Fairy Duster are all popular favorites amond the Phoenix landscape contractors. Other standard species you will find in hot xeriscape regions may be the creosote, bursage, mexican hopseed, feathery cassia, ruellia katie, or bougainvillea species.
- Xeriscape Grasses - Landscape planners use grasses for accents or to fill in oversized areas.Large accent grasses such as pampas grass or fountain grass can grow fast and provide a visual center feature. Muhly grass is an excellent choice for accents too. Some groundcover grasses can actually fill in large spaces and provide a great xeriscaping environment (blue fescue, blue grama, and other ornamental grasses).
- Agaves – There are many unique species of agaves, that range from the little agave parryi to the large 62″ tall agave americana. The southwest xeriscape plant of choice is ofter an Agave because of it’s minimal water use and little to no maintenance.
- Cacti - Arizona landscape designers have the great selection of many varieties of cacti – but most commonly, the Saguaro cactus (native to Arizona). The best statement for any desert landscape in Arizona is the accent that a Saguaro provides. Cacti in xeriscaping will drastically reduce the need for water useage, and some gorgeous cacti considerations are: Hedge Hog, Golden Barrel, Mexican Fence Post and Cholla.
- Desert Trees – Desert climate trees also require less water and less maintenance. A natural wind break and some shade can be provided by properly placing trees and large shrubs in your xeriscaping project. Landscape Designers love the Palo Verde, mesquite, and desert willow for some of their professional projects.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR LANDSCAPING PROJECT:
- Review the city requirements for xeriscaping species, plant locations and restricted plants. Check for turf restrictions, since some areas do not allow installation of high water useage plants like turf.
- Research landscaping & xeriscaping plants that are good for your specific location. Some plants will do poorly if not planted in the proper region.
- Research rainfall for your region and this can help you select plants and setup & plan for a proper drip irrigation system.
- Use groupings of different species of shrubs in large mounds. A good idea is to use big species of trees or plants for focal features, and under plant with smaller, colorful plants.
- Water early in the morning – this is a cool part of the morning that can help your plants use more of the water and avoid evaporation.
- By watering less, and longer durations, you are actually helping your desert plants develop a better root system, and they will require less water.
- Snip wilted flowers & foliage to improve blooms & blooming lengths.
- If you have sod or turf in your xeriscape, then make sure you irrigate properly and reduce runoff.
- The use of a professional landscape designer is a superb investment
Categories: Landscaping Tags: desert landscaping, landscape design, Landscaping, xeriscaping
The Best Landscaping Ideas Can Be Found Online
If you’re wanting to create the ultimate landscape but you don’t have a clue where to begin, consider looking online. You can find online design programs for landscape design ideas that allow you to log on, mess with with an assortment of designs and truly plan the landscape you want.
The beauty of online design is that you can plan outlines for your landscape from any computer, save it, and then come back to it in a while if you are cut short. It contains all the tools you require for anything you wish to do with your property. Whether you are looking to put in a flower bed, some shrubbery, some trees or you want to put a fish pond in your backyard, internet landscape planning can give you everything you need for success.
An internet search will bring up various sites that offer this service. It might be a good move to seek out a few free ones to begin with. Be cautious of those that you must pay for. Confirm that the quality is acceptable, make sure it provides you the flexibility you need and ensure you aren’t being swindled by frauds who may set up phony websites just to draw in trusting wannabe landscapers. If the website looks good and you have done your homework, you should be able to come across a website that is able to offer you the landscaping ideas you require to plan your dream yard.
Online landscape design is easy and entertaining. Cut and paste a flower garden here, a hedge there, or delete what you’ve just completed and make a fresh start. These are only some of the means by which you are able to plan landscaping ideas on these sites. They are quite entertaining to use and most of them will offer you the freedom to do anything you want. Next, when you’re done you can print off a schematic of your designs so that you have an outline to work from as you produce your dream backyard.
Designing your landscaping ideas on a website is only a fraction of what is necessary to build your concept. You also have to do some hard work to get your ideas in place. If you don’t understand the first thing about landscaping, you might want to hire a company to complete it for you. On the other hand, if you would like to be able to declare that you developed the picture perfect property from planning to execution, start working with the plan you made and in no time at all you’ll possess the property you’ve always wanted.
And to think it all started with a few landscaping ideas on a computer monitor that you made online.
Categories: Landscaping Tags: landscape design, Landscaping, landscaping design ideas, landscaping ideas
Landscaping Ideas For Your Exterior
For those of us who are lucky enough to have an outdoor area of our very own, properly landscaping this area can create a living environment that can be enjoyed and rewarding for years to come. Whether you have a large yard or even just a small piece of yard off a backyard patio, the options for landscaping are endless. But before you head out to the local home and garden market for shrubbery and lawn enhancements, you should examine exactly what type of landscape idea you wish to implement and the maintenance factor that will come with your new yard.
There are many places to search for outdoor landscaping designs. if you are new to this type of development. Local home and garden centers are a great place to start if you prefer to implement it yourself rather than hire a professional landscaping service. The Internet has a huge online resource of information for anyone that is a beginner or for someone who is knowledgeable in landscaping but just needs a few new and creative ideas for their home.
Take into account the amount of spare time you will need. You will need to allocate time in order to design, set up and take care of your new outdoor project. Some landscaping in the front yard will take quite a bit of time to design and set up, but will be worth it in the end since there will be relatively no maintenance from week to week. Some simple designs for outdoor landscaping can be implemented with practically no extra time, but require quite a bit of maintenance in order to keep it looking as it did when you first set it in place.
After you have decided what you want in your yard and where to put them do some online research to find the best place to purchase the plants or kits for your project. Some things may require a little more muscle but you can always invite your brother-in-law over to help.
Do a little research on the types of plants that will do well in your area. If you live in the Southwest you will probably not plant the same flowers and trees that do well in the Pacific Northwest or on the East coast. The local nursery would be a great source of advice and will have in stock most of the plants you may want.
Easy care, low maintenance plants and construction materials is what you should look for if you do not want to be chained to your backyard. Most of us want a place to barbecue and entertain but don’t like the raking, weeding, trimming etc.
Unless you have to have a lawn for your children to frolic on try to lose it. It is such a time and water waster. Play areas can be created with sand or bark. Look into “rubber bark” that is made out of recycled tire and lasts long and looks great.
Just because you are not an expert gardener does not mean you cannot plan out beautiful and easy landscaping ideas for the yard and garden. You will build your confidence, as well as your muscles, when you have completed your backyard project.
Categories: Landscaping Tags: front yard landscaping, landscape design, landscaping ideas, outdoor landscaping ideas