Hi FN! We are "all in" and now permanent residents. Thanks for your thoughts, input and recommendations... Those links are priceless!!

-Jeff

Hey, welcome to Arizona, the most fun, most goofy, most entertaining gardening climate in North America! Your post is PERFECT for this forum, so thanks for, um, posting it, hah. FN sent you some great links! Definitely check them out. Great stuff.

I'd also suggest getting some of the great, LOCAL gardening books: Plants For Dry Climates, Desert Gardening, Desert Landscaping, Desert Gardening (Sunset), Gardening in the Southwest (also by Sunset), and one of my very favorites Palm Springs Garden Style. They will all have tons of great ideas, the last one especially regarding different gardening styles.

I would STRONGLY suggest against Ficus nitida, the Indian laurel, just because they get heavily damaged in cold winters and then become a mess to deal with. I'd also sugest planting plants that LOVE it here, not just the ones that can tolerate it here (for example Mediterranean fan palm over Queen Palm, and so on).

Have fun, let us know what you select and how it works out. I'm sure others will chime in too. Post often, we love updates and comments! Check out our monthly threads on what looks good/bad/awful in our gardens (the March 2015 one has lots of great pics and updates).

Happy gardening!

Grant

Just a chime in on the books: My favorite is The Hot Garden by Scott Calhoun.

Those two should get you started just fine. My number one governing
Arizona gardening factoid is this: water is extremely expensive and will
only get more so.

One thing that might be interesting is to look through mature neighborhoods and see all the decommissioned swimming pools.

Efforts to bring wetter climate plants and methods to the desert are usually going to be difficult to keep up. This Arizona Gardening forum is a good source of info on things that don't work.

Thanks Grant, Violet, and Grubby_AZ.... valuable information here and I really appreciate it! I've been spinning my wheels researching things on my own..

Funny, I chose the Ficus and Laurel because they reminded me of the Buckthorns I grew back in Wisconsin...(very invasive, but a great sound and neighbor barrier) knowing that they freeze back takes them off the table. Planting things that love it here makes perfect sense.

I am sensitive to the water shortage despite the fact that I am putting a pool in. (health & quality of life issues for a family member makes it a necessary evil I will gladly overpay for) BTW...Is it silly to think I can bury a couple of 55gal drums to collect/pump/drip rain water?

Thanks again for the great resources. I want to be sensitive to the AZ climate by being sensible about what I choose to plant and you all have helped me get some footing to choose a direction. I'll post my progress.....

Cheers!

Well, if you like that bright Midwestern Green that Ficus nitida gives, check out some "Texas ebony" trees (now known botanically as Ebenopsis flexicaulis , formerly known as Pithecellobium flexicaulis. They have a VERY bright green canopy and absolutely love it here. They're evergreen and very low maintenance other than the big seed pods they drop (which are easy to see and pick up, and they're not spiny and don't blow around so they're not that bad). Just something to think about if you like Green Green. My current house came with one out front and it's done great. It gets zero automatic irrigation since it's quite a few years old, although I do give it a good soaking once a month or so at the end of spring through mid autumn.

I have a 75 gallon rain barrel that stays mostly full most of the year. It's not buried though. I'd love to hear from folks with one that is buried. Mine only collects water off about 25% of my roof area. I wish I had more!

Take care and keep us highly posted. :)

Grant

The collecting rain idea is great. I have a couple 35 gallon trash cans used for this and I hardly ever run out (I also occasionally use RO water). It seems March to August is our driest part of the year so I try to get extra rain water in odd containers from the rains of Feb/March.

Do you do anything about mosquitoes? I have lids on my trash cans but they still get in. I started using vegetable oil and it works well but it makes the surface of the water look a little messy after a while, which I don't mind, but I'm wondering what other alternatives there are.

Nice! glad to here collecting rain is possible... I wasn't sure how long you could hold water in this climate. I watched all the rain running off my roof and down the street last month and hoped it was a possibility. I think I'll give it a shot and keep you posted Grant.....looking at Texas ebony ..thanks

As far as mosquitoes go iandyaz. .. I hadn't heard about the vegetable oil trick.. interesting.. it coats the surface preventing the females from laying eggs??. I have heard these things work.... "mosquito dunks" but have never used them myself. The mosquitoes back in Wisconsin were pretty bad and often mistaken for the state bird :-)

I don't know about Maricopa County as a whole but there might be a program there similar to one here in Pima County where the area water utility will pay HALF of your rainwater collection setup costs, which includes guttering of all permanent structures, tankage, low pressure distribution, and licensed labor. Chandler and Mesa have programs. I'm starting on a house and garage in three weeks and need to get it done by the start of the monsoon season (Fourth of July). I get to trench in caliche. Yahoo!

Remember though that the average annual rainfall is only about a foot, but rainwater harvesting can work well with graywater harvesting as well.

I had to google caliche...:-) I now know what I've been carting into piles after the excavators left....note to self.. *Buy a pickaxe* :-)

I think vegetable oil both prevents eggs from hatching right and drowns the ones in the water (they have to break the surface of the water to breathe). Last year when I used it, it cleared out both trash cans.

This weekend I noticed my trash cans didn't get any mosquitoes while some of my other containers did and there was a very light coating of oil over the surface from last year. So I was definitely using too much last year when it turned gross.

I don't do anything about mosquitos in my rain barrel. It has a VERY fine mesh lid and I've never found any mosquitos in there. If I did, I would definitely use mosquito dunks, which are a floating ring of a type of Baccilus bacteria that kills mosquito larvae but is harmless to everything else. Fun discussion all, and do keep us posted on your landscape/book decisions! Happy gardening!

The mosquito dunks work great! They contain a subspecies of a bacteria (Bacillius thuringensis - referred to as Bee-tee, Bt) that only kills mosquitoes and is safe for fish, wildlife and humans. Also safe if the water is used on edible plants. I use pieces of them in my horse water troughs.

Stay away from Ficus nitida (Indian laurel). Their roots are notorious for lifting sidewalks, pool decks and fence footings. The rule for trees is to plan for their mature size and plant 1/2 the canopy diameter away from buildings and fences. Your landscape plan looks too small for most trees so consider arbors or trellises for vines or you can even use colored fabric 'sails' for shade.

On a side note - most allergies are caused by windborne pollen. Plants with large or 'showy' flowers rely on pollinators like bees, other insects and even birds to disperse their pollen because it is heavy. Plants with tiny flowers like olive and Brazilian pepper (also mulberry, cottonwood, juniper, mesquite) use the wind to carry their light pollen.

aztreelvr (certified arborist)

Thanks! aztreelvr....great info!!... Any fast growing AZ vines you can recommend? I had some beautiful zone 2 tolerant Wisteria blooming & reseeding back in WI but didn't move any seed/plants with us .... not sure how they would have done here. What about topping / aggressively trimming to keep size in check? Giant bonsai Mediterranean courtyard garden :-)

I would definitely stay away from oleander as well, messy, poisonous, and very invasive.

Oh no!! You said the "T" word......topping. In the wrong hands this word can lead to permanently damaged landscape plants, especially trees. You could agressively trim, but why go to all that trouble? Just choose plants whose mature size will fit into your space and save your free time to enjoy your pool and landscape.

As for vines, there are several to choose from. Forget wisteria here, but perhaps Lilac Vine (Hardenbergia violacea) would work. Lady Banks rose (thornless in white or yellow) grows fast as does Pink Trumpet Vine (Podranea ricasoliana). You don't want Bougainvillea with your pool or you'll be constantly fishing out the colorful leaves/flowers.

Heres a link to Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert which has over 200 low water use plants with photos and descriptions. You'll need to water your new plants correctly for the first few weeks so refer to page 14 of Landscape Watering by the Numbers. Page 9 shows how much water to apply based on the size of the plant. Most of the valley cities have free landscape classes offered by their water conservation offices. Of course folks on this forum always have great advice.

Good luck!

One more thing....the 10 year historical average for annual rainfall in the valley is 7.4 inches. 2009 was the worst in decades with just 2.56 inches! Tucson gets more rain than the Phoenix area but if you could collect all the water that a 1" rain event produced from a 1,000 sf roof, you would get about 600 gallons. ;-)