I forgot to mention we live in Queen Creek, Arizona. It get's pretty hot around here :-)

Bamboo and fruit trees

Hi there--you've got a nice garden there, and I love the plan you posted. :)

If you'd like dappled shade, I'd suggest getting a native Palo brea tree. They have nice dense, twiggy branches and cast a nice dappled shade, plus they are native too, so they tend to love it here. You could still plant fun things underneath like brightly colored shrubby lantanas, some leafy penstemons, and even some of the prickly pears (Opuntias) just to name a few.

If you're looking for denser shade, you might want to think about Texas Ebony. It produces very bright green leaves that it tends to keep all year (with light shedding all year too) and it casts a pretty dense shade and is a small grower, for a tree. The shade is a bit dense/dark for something like a lantana, but you could do some shade-tolerant succulents like Portulacaria (not to be confused with portulaca, LOL), or you could still plant bright lantanas in sunny areas further from the tree.

I love lantanas, though not the low-growing creeping type (though the purple type smells lovely and does have some good uses). If you go with a palo verde, I'd go with one of the native types and not the hybrid 'Desert Museum' as I think that thing just grows too fast and is too weak, despite being the "in" tree these days.

You've got tons of fun options and I'm sure other folks will chime in too. Let us know what you pick and how it works out!

Take care and have fun,
Grant

Here is a link that might be useful: My little plant/garden blog, just a post or two a month

Thank you phxplantaddict and Grant for your responses! I love the idea of bamboo and lantanas! I will definetly incorporate them into the yard in some way.

What are your thoughts on Chinese Pistache? It appears they're slow growers... The red leaves may be worth looking at a bare tree for a couple months :-)

Also, thank you Grant for your kind words regarding my sketch. My wife and I are shooting for a 50/50 mix of hardscape and landscape, but I'm sure the plan will change several times in the coming months.

Chinese pistache are very pretty trees, but they do usually drop all of their leaves and your initial post mentioned you did not want a tree that did that. If you don't mind a tree that drops its leaves, then give one a try. A friend of mine has one in her garden and each autumn I'm envious of the color!

And don't forget dwarf citrus too--nothing says "Arizona" like some nice homegrown citrus. My landscape is very low water, but I have planted six citrus trees in the garden (plus some ornamental types in large pots) and I'm glad I did.

Let us know what you pick and how it works out!
Take care,
Grant

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden pics from my little garden, September 2011

The City of Scottsdale has some great landscape plans that you can look at online! They were developed for a revitalization project but are a fabulous resource for anyone trying to design a landscape.

I love the names they used: Birdscape; Colorscape; EZscape; Flutterscape; Verdescape, etc.

Check it out! ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Sample landscape plans