Desert Crest Press

Desert landscaping doesn't have to be boring! It can be very colorful.

Your home here in Arizona can have so many different colors and textures in the landscaping design. Phoenix area homeowners can enjoy low maintenance, drought tolerant plants without giving up beauty and style. Creative use of unique colors and contrast of foliage plants and cactus carries a great deal of visual impact even when few desert plants that flower are in bloom.

It isn’t just the selection of desert plants that create a stunning and pleasing high color xeriscape design for your home. Placing the flowering plants and colored foliage must be done with some vision of how it will flow in all stages of a year’s display. To be able to do this, the landscape designer must have many plants and their attributes memorized along with each stage of their growth, the mature sizes and flowering through the months of the calendar. This ability requires far more skill in desert areas like Phoenix, than the more verdant regions.

Here we have Golden Barrel Cactus in the foreground of the xeriscape design, echoing the mounded Yellow Bells and the bright yellow variegation of the container grown Agave on the pillars. When in bloom, the Purple Prickly Pear tosses more yellow into the planting scheme, just the foliage picks up the blue flowering Creeping Rosemary and a tone in the boulders beside the sidewalk’s lower steps. The orange of the Lantana is the right hot accent to really set of this exquisite Phoenix desert landscaping design.

Vibrant xeriscape landscaping in Phoenix featuring beautiful blooming plants.

Well thought out xeriscape design for Phoenix curb appeal will be beautiful and well layered from any viewing angle. Height from great ornamental trees like Palo Verde and Acacia mixed with architectural cactus and hardscape structures like the pillars are important parts of front yard landscaping. Adding really wonderful and unusual xeriscape plant colors like the steel blue spiky leaves of the Century Plant Agave give your landscape design excellent accents of high interest. The art of beauty in Arizona landscapes always begins with the assistance of a professional xeriscape designer.

Popularity: 79% [?]

Focal point natural stone walls with adobe coping blend beautifully in this Arizona landscape design.

The easiest way to traverse grade changes is exactly the way most builders treat them, sloped rather than steps. Homeowners in Arizona will find that there are some problems with keep landscape stone and the soil where it belongs on the fast, cheap and easy way to deal with inclines or declines in property grading. Adding character and low maintenance beauty to your Phoenix landscaping calls from retaining walls and steps.

Home improvements like this require you to work with a mason first and a Phoenix landscaper to renovate your planting areas and lawns after the hardscape is completed. It makes a great deal more sense to hire a masonry contractor that is just as talented in landscaping as they are working with adobe and stone. You will have a lot less hassle dealing with one company as opposed to two and your landscape construction will be completed far faster.

Coordinating natural stone used in retaining walls with smoother, more uniform pavers for the sidewalk and steps can create some very high class, beautiful landscape design features. Not only that your Phoenix desert landscaping

Understated elegance and exceptional use of color. A semi-private Phoenix courtyard landscape design that is clean and very well coordinated.

ground cover stone won’t be rolling out onto the neighborhood sidewalk. The entire appearance of your Arizona home will be much more clean and maintained if your xeriscape stone isn’t spilled out onto the sidewalk, creating a hazard for people strolling by.

Leveling sloped ground in larger areas on your Phoenix property, your will gain a lot more useful space for outdoor living rooms. This front courtyard provides stunning use of natural stone walls and pillars in the perfect color to create just the right amount of décor drama with this Arizona home.

Wide steps leading into the semi-private shaded courtyard provide a grand, sweeping welcome to all visitors. Night time safety and added attractiveness is provided by the outdoor lighting blocks in the paving stones steps. The most wonderfully effective landscape contractors in Phoenix have an excellent eye for color. This is extremely important to having your Arizona landscaping turn out beautifully.

The finished effect here is understated elegance that makes excellent use of the dark trunked mature tree at the back of the front courtyard as a dramatic focal point and welcoming shade in just the right location. The masonry stone walls, xericaping rock and the paving stones sidewalk and steps all blend so beautifully. Add the well placed desert plants and you have a professional landscape design anyone in Phoenix would be proud to call home.

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Silvery blue paddles and bright red fruits of the Giant Prickly Pear Cactus for Phoenix xericaping design interest.

Until you really study them, cactus appears to offer easy to grow plants for desert landscaping around your Arizona home. There are a variety of colors the main body of cactus plants display, the most unusual of which is silver blue to blue green. Not something that is found in the ornamental plants we use for xersicape in Phoenix or Scottsdale landscapes.

Placing these unusually colored drought tolerant plants in the right spot in an overall desert landscaping design will completely alter the impact of artistry planting areas display.

Blue foliage always stands out well in landscaping designs.

The green blue of the paddle shaped Giant Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia robusta) is somewhat silvered giving it a very lovely light overall presence. Its texture is an excellent contrast against finer textured foliage of the bulk of ornamentals that thrive here in the arid climate. While it should receive extra water during the summer to be at its robust best, the cactus will be happy in xerscape design landscaping at any elevation and the valley floor. This distinctive landscaping cactus can grow to 18 feet tall and 10 feet wide.

The bluest plant you'll find for xeriscape design in Arizona, the Blue Candle Cactus.

It produces amazingly beautiful blooms in May or June that bud out a soft shrimp peach and open to display yellow to salmon toned petals. The fruit of Giant Prickly Pear Cactus ripens through the summer to outline the paddles in vibrant red by August.

Flowers, colored foliage and edible fruits too.

Besides being a great addition to your Phoenix landscaping, the fruits are sweet and delicious. Known as Cactus Pears or Tunas, you can also enjoy them eaten raw or cooked, put up in jelly or fermented to create wine and liquers.

Most astounding in color for your xeriscape landscaping in Arizona is the Blue Candle Cactus (Myrtillocactus geometrizans). This beautiful succulent will really stand out in your yard whether it is in bloomor not. The mass of fleshy branches will remain quite upright and columnar, growing to 15 feet tall by. The blooms are white and appear in March, giving way to incredibly little sweet deep red fruits.

The Blue Candle Cactus is not as cold tolerant as some of the selections used in landscape design around the Scottsdale and Phoenix areas. Take care to plant

this unusually colored Phoenix xeriscape plant where it will be protected when temperatures could fall below 25°. Courtyards and along exterior walls will always be warmer than away from your home in other areas of your Arizona landscaping.

Popularity: 58% [?]

Timeless beauty from native Arizona stone for patio water features and firepits work well with Phoenix homes.

Patio designs for Phoenix homes do not have to be large to make space for all the comforts of outdoor living. The beauty of our native Arizona stone adds great interest when the color selected for building water features and firepits echoes the tones of your pavers for patio. The overall effect when the paving stones flooring and the masonry features give off the appearance that they were all created with the same stone looks very sophisticated. While we sometimes prefer to make the elements of patio designs accent each other rather than look to be all made of the same material, such a choice changes the feeling of your outdoor living rooms completely.

These Phoenix homeowners have a rather small private space, so the patio designs for this yard were best to be built from lighter tones to give the feeling of a larger space. Instead of electing a solid color for the paving stones patio floor, a blend of desert landscape colors can easily be found in native Arizona stone. Sticking to stone masonry that flows with the pavers places the greater part of the weight on texture over colors. We made great use out of both weathered face stone against stucco walls in the background and smoother cut stone in both structures.

The difference in coloring and pattern found in cut stone of the same type used in the weathered edge form gives this patio water fountain wall and basin more interest. Contrasting smooth with rough surfaces is a great way to give a lot more personality than if everything looked exactly the same. Designing really artistic looking stone structures for your Phoenix home requires a keen eye for natural stone. The finished look of your Arizona water feature or firepit will always have a great deal more beauty when all six sides of the pieces used in the construction are considered.

Firepits burning wood and natural gas are both popular choices for evening light and warmth in outdoor rooms. The available space you have in the private areas of your yard, can limit where these lifestyle enhancements of fire and

5-Star Service and Artisan Quality Work in Phoenix, AZ

water are situated. Some homeowners in Phoenix elect to put them at opposite sides of the patio designs. Others choose the combination of being close to the cascading water for its cooling effect and soothing sound to be enjoyable along with the open flames of their patio firepit.

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Custom courtyard fountains for Phonix homes can be very unique. Beautiful use of color and form with this more sculptural looking custom courtyard fountain.

Adding water features to your Phoenix courtyard or patio setting creates an element that is both soothing to your psyche and a natural cooling benefit. Custom designed outdoor living room fountains allow your water feature to coordinate perfectly with your taste and the home’s architecture. There are many things that can be used to create very unique courtyard fountains for the Arizona home. It can be rather ruggedly handsome using native Arizona stone or very traditional and elegant in nature.

Stone orbs and those made from frost tolerant clay or other sculpture materials can give a water fountain feature a very interesting look. The addition of a stop such as is used in the top photograph will alter the music Phoenix fountains will make.

Making use of natural stone constructed as masonry gives you the opportunity to creating a waterfalls feature that is geometric instead of appearing like something stumbled upon in nature. Such a mortared basin and waterfalls wall can be tucked into the corner and erected along the wall of the house. The same type of outdoor living room fountain concept can be crafted from three dimensional

Native Arizona stone makes a sharp looking patio waterfalls fountain.

pavers. This is done by building 2 pillars as ends and a low freestanding wall to create the waterfalls channel in. Channel waterfalls like these can be backlit with colored fiber optic lighting for wonderful nighttime effects.

It is also possible to custom install the traditional fountains you can find at Phoenix garden and patio centers. They can be combined with mortared natural stone pools or sculptural ones in many different sizes. The use of tiny fiber optic lights can add a lot of beauty and needed illumination to dramatically change the look of the courtyard or patio.

It is popular with Phoenix homeowners to also add custom water fountains in other places in their landscaping too. Some people request having the perfect design to accent the approach to their front door. Situating a water fountain feature near you bedroom or office window can also allow you to reap the soothing benefits of the cascading music through an open window. Working with an experienced custom water fountain designer will ensure that your new Phoenix water feature will hold up to the drastic changes in our desert climate and be long lasting for many years of enjoyment.

Popularity: 56% [?]

Colorful and low maintenace natural cut stone sidewalks are perfect for Phoenix adobe homes.

While it is important to have good overall curb appeal, the feeling of welcome and beauty should increase the closer a visitor draws to your door. The art of approach in Phoenix landscape design is far more than having the right selection and placement of plants. Consider your front yard, or any part of your landscape, as you would a room inside your home. The closer you get to the front door, you should imagine people entering an outdoor foyer by following the sidewalk.

An artistically designed outdoor foyer doesn’t begin at the front door; it should present a direct route to the entry in a most pleasant way. You have a ceiling formed by the sky, walls created by your house and plantings along with flooring. Outdoor flooring can be stone cover so popular in xeriscape, lawn and mulched bed cover, but also includes the pavement type used for Phoenix sidewalks. In the public area of your front yard and outdoor foyer, it is the sidewalk that makes the most important flooring.

Phoenix sidewalks can be constructed with your choice of paving materials, though cut natural stone sidewalks are

Budget wise exposed aggregate sidewalks offer good landscape design texture.

far more preferable to Arizona flagstone. Plain old poured concrete is utilitarian and very unimaginative. The better choice for your sidewalk approach to the front door would be a more creative method of aggregate finishing for better textural interest, pavers or cut stone paving.

Many times, the art of approach is left unfinished in Phoenix landscape design with nothing to soften the hardscape element of sidewalks. Plant textures, the softness of their greenery and even tasteful use of sculptural pieces create more appeal to welcoming guests to your home. From the curb, paying attention to these details will easily direct new visitors immediately to the front door. Pheonix sidewalks aren’t highways; selecting the materials used in this part of your landscaping should be treated with as much care in as you would the colors in the area rug just inside the front door.

Paver sidewalks are less costly than natural stone sidewalks, yet each holds great value in enriching the effect of your landscape design. The coloring in the overall look of a finished paving stone installation will be more subtle than the more variable tones of cut natural stone tiles. Some Phoenix homeowners will prefer their front sidewalk to be more in the background than natural stone walks would be. For some Arizona homes, paver sidewalks may not be the right accent to the house’s architecture.

Studying photos of the different paving styles in actual finished projects is the best way to know you have the right look in sidewalks to compliment your Arizona home. Framing Phoenix sidewalks adds focal points of interest and beauty to enhance the overall view and experience that welcomes and entices all who approach the door.

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Natural beauty in patio designs using Arizona flagstone and stucco elements.

Not everyone wants pavers for the surface of their sidewalks or courtyard and patio floors. Here in Arizona, the climate is perfect for long lasting flagstone paving. Complementing our adobe architecture is easily done with stucco as part of your outdoor living and patio designs. Combining both stucco and Arizona flagstone in your courtyard and patio design is an excellent enhancement to your home and lifestyle.

The elements of Phoenix landscape design that work well with stucco construction are items like your ramada pillars, patio seat walls, courtyard walls or outdoor fireplace and barbeques. The stucco can be made to match the color used in the walls of your adobe home or to accent it by echoing the colors in the Arizona flagstone paving. With barbeque islands, the counter top is formed with a capping of either smoothly honed natural stone tile or ceramic. Deciding with of the selections of built in barbeques capping works best will depend on your patio design and taste.

From beehives to barbeques, stucco and stone are perfect partners in Phoenix landscape design.

Using Arizona flagstone in your Phoenix landscape design blends so beautifully with the surrounding countryside blend of the available buff, oak, rose, Sedona red and gold tones that are found in the rock formations here can make patio designs very unique. Flagstone paving can be installed all on one level or in stepped designs for multi level patios that add wonderful dimension to outdoor living area designs. This also allows flagstone to lend itself quite nicely to impressive sidewalks and courtyard flooring that flows.

Stucco is a material that can be applied to many different shapes far easier than crafting them out of natural stone and brick. Using stucco in your Phoenix landscape design makes it very simple to have curved walls and seats, round pillars or square all according to the look you desire when the installation project is finished.

Applying light and dark values of Arizona flagstone colors can create some very beautiful effects in all the elements of your Phoenix patio designs. Working with our native stone also makes it possible to include more than just flagstone cuts of the same colored rock. Incorporating boulders as accents in the landscape design or walls of your home’s structure and stucco is a great way to pull everything together using different forms and textures.

Popularity: 100% [?]

The beauty of a pondless waterfall makes a wonderful addition to the patio or poolside.

The element of water and its musical movement makes the perfect outdoor living enhancement for your Phoenix patio or poolside. Tucking a small water feature that is artistically formed to look very natural into a select space can add great value to your home. Waterfalls do not have to be huge to provide a soothing, relaxing atmosphere to your Arizona landscaping.

The magic of water that moves is not psychosomatic. It actually releases serotonin into the air. When you are close to running water such as small patio waterfalls, your body makes excellent use of the floating serotonin. Just 20 minutes spent relaxing next to your cascading water feature can actually erase stress and lift your mood … naturally. So if you’re feeling that having waterfalls installed in your Phoenix landscaping is rather extravagant, think again. You’ll be saving money on headache relief from Advil and adjusting your entire outlook on a daily basis.

Having your waterfalls designed to recirculate the water in your swimming pool is an excellent idea for desert homeowners. You new waterfalls will always have clear, sparkling water running through it. Imagine the lifestyle enhancement you can add to your outdoor living space with a custom designed waterfalls that is perfectly suited to your space and taste. The natural rocks and boulders available for Phoenix landscaping water features are just the right colors to blend beautifully with our adobe architecture.

If you happen to have a slope in your yard, you will be able to enjoy longer cascades from new Phoenix waterfalls. While having a pond built in desert landscaping is not always a good choice, pondless waterfalls and streams are perfect for conserving water without sacrificing its magical qualities. If your yard has rather flat terrain, you can still enjoy the wonders of waterfalls in your Arizona landscaping. The secret is designing the water feature to mimic nature for the best possible visual appeal.

Custom waterfalls, Phoenix homeowner, will add value to your real estate in a way no manufactured model purchased at a store could hope to impart. Using natural rocks and soil allows you to grow  grasses and perennial plants along the edges of the cascade or stream bank. This is important to making your waterfalls or stream increase in beauty, and adds more value to your home. You’ll also be able to enjoy your pondless waterfalls year around in Phoenix, making it a wonderful addition to your outdoor living room.

Popularity: 40% [?]