Hello! I've recently fallen in love with planting and have
about 15 small pots in my east-facing patio.

I now want to put a row of pots
along the front west-facing side of my Tempe townhouse, which will get full sun from
about 1pm-6pm. On top of my hose watering they will get some sprinkler spray
daily from my small patch of front lawn.

1) I want
to use terra-cotta pots in the front because I'm *technically* not supposed to
put stuff out there and I don't want them to draw attention. On my patio I only
used glazed pots because I understand terra-cotta breathes which is a bad thing
for water retention in AZ. Can I seal these on the inside? Do I need to be
careful about what to use to prevent harming the plants? No edibles will go in
these pots because I expect the HOA maintenance will spray them with whatever
weedkiller crap they spray on everything else.

2) The sun
is awfully harsh on the front of my house. Should I consider nesting one pot
inside another to keep my plants from cooking? I would prefer not to because I
want to use larger pots and can't spend a great deal of money. Are there cheaper
suggestions for keeping them from cooking?

3) Any
suggestions for plants that do well in smallish pots in full west sun? They will be 1-2
foot high planters on a 2-foot wide strip of gravel right next to the
front of the house. I care more about year-round prettiness than
short-term flowers, and love succulents but hate cactus.
After reading through this forum I'm thinking yucca, desert milkweed, totem
pole cactus, and rescuing the pink-and-yellow lantana that's growing inside the
tennis court before the maintenance people notice and kill it (but how to
rescue it when it's so prickly??) I would love something climbing from
a pot up the front of the house if it can
survive.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions! :-)