Desert Crest Press

Native to Mexico and Texas, Cenzio is perfect for the lower elevations around Phoenix. Arizona landscaping is challenging to those who have moved from higher moisture, lower heat climates. This low maintenance shrub is perfectly happy, even joyful in the high temperatures of your full sun xeriscaping landscaping where other selections may go into distress.

Cenzio comes in several bloom colors and also gives you a choice in foliage. There are silvery leafed varieties and those that are green. This medium sized shrub is rugged, thriving in arid wild areas, yet perfectly suited for landscaping in Arizona of great beauty. Also known as Texas Ranger, the silvered leafed varieties are a commanding presence in xeriscape designs that are as at home in commercial landscapes as they are at increasing curb appeal in residential landscaping.

Arizona landscape designers will always use an excellent blend of different colors and textures of cacti, foliage and blooms to ensure that your outdoor living areas and real estate value is enriched by your landscaping. Low maintenance and high impact plants like Cenzio are great additions to just about any full sun planting. They flower in white, blue, purple and pink making it easy to find just the right specimen to accent your home and Arizona landscaping taste perfectly.

While Cenzio is a rugged, desert native plant, you’ll find that fabulous blooming is best obtained with drip irrigation in your xeriscaping landscaping. In its natural setting Leucophyllum, the Latin name for Cenzio, is at its most glorious after a heavy rain. Assisting landscaping in Arizona with small amounts of water on a schedule is the best thing that you can do for your home’s real estate value and curb appeal. This is easiest to accomplish and enjoy a more carefree landscape with an automatic drip irrigation system.

These xeriscape shrubs have aromatic evergreen foliage and bloom from February through May. While they are sometimes called ‘sage’, they are not related to this group of ornamental plants. Cenzio has the ability to predict rain by bursting into bloom a few days before rainfall arrives in Arizona, causing them to sometimes be called Barometer Bush. Arizona landscape designers around Phoenix prize this evergreen shrub for hedges and single blooming accents that bring great color to landscaping in Arizona without great labor involved.

To place this plant in your xeriscaping landscaping for its easiest maintenance, you’ll want to select a planting spot that has superior drainage and is exposed to full sun. This shrub will not do well in part shade or full shade in your Arizona landscaping. With a spreading shape, Cenzio reaches 4-5 feet wide and 3-4 foot tall on average. For the best presence and the most vibrant blooming, you will want to add drip irrigation to the planting. Then you’ll see just how gorgeous Texas Sage really can be.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Palo Verde is a family of trees native to the Sonoran Desert. There are 3 varieties of this rugged desert native; Mexican Palo Verde, Yellow Palo Verde or Foothill Palo Verde, and Blue Palo Verde. Of the three available choices for your xeriscaping landscaping, the Blue Palo Verde is the best selection.

While the Mexican Palo Verde has visually stunning blooms that have the added excitement of one vivid orange petal on every flower, it lacks the attractive shape and size of the Blue Palo Verde. Additionally, this particular native of the Sonoran can be extremely invasive. In your Arizona landscaping – this translates to lots of weeds.

The Yellow Palo Verde, also known as the Foothill Palo Verde, is much smaller than the lovely Blue variety and very slow growing. While this selection of the desert trees is more drought tolerant than the Blue Palo Verde, it is far less graceful in natural shaping. You’ll be waiting a long time for Yellow Palo Verde to become a presence in your Arizona landscaping. It takes 100 years for these small trees of about 15 feet tall to reach maturity. Still this variety of Palo Verde trees has some lovely qualities that have a place in your Phoenix landscape design.

The blooms on all Palo Verdes are yellow, yet each has a distinct shaping. The Yellow Palo Verde blooms look something like a huge fuchsia flower, while those on the Blue variety are beautifully bell shaped. The foliage being light yellow-green makes the Yellow or Foothill Palo Verde a great Phoenix landscape design plant for added color impact in your desert landscaping. Against the green bark, the foliage is an excellent contrast and its more upright shape does make the Foothill Palo Verde distinctive from the other two varieties.

The Blue Palo Verde is the loveliest of all in this family of xeriscaping landscaping trees. The weeping shape of maturing Blue varieties is much more graceful. This native desert tree is faster growing and will reach 30 feet tall, making it an excellent small shade tree for today’s suburban yards. In bloom from May – June, the Blue Palo Verde is outstanding for floral interest and vivid yellow accents to add excitement to your outdoor living areas and curb appeal. This particular selection of the native Palo Verde does require more water than the others, but with drip irrigation your Phoenix xeriscaping will be more attractive.

Since during hot, dry months, the Palo Verde will lose its leaves, it makes a great deal of sense that adding drip irrigation to these valuable xeriscape trees’ space in your Arizona landscaping. This simple, no waste watering solution will also maintain your real estate curb appeal as any home landscape is far more attractive when trees are in full leaf and the plants are lush and vigorous. The other asset you will find in adding properly calibrated drip irrigation to your desert landscaping, is that all the plants will grow and fill faster with a little assistance from you.

Popularity: 24% [?]

One of the fun things about Arizona patio designs is that there is no proper spot to locate your BBQ island or outdoor kitchen. Most people do want their new built-in barbeques in a location that gives easy access to the kitchen – which makes perfect sense. Still no two custom outdoor grill islands are ever in the exact same place within the overall patio design’s layout.

Today’s Arizona homeowner can choose to have any size and any style of outdoor cooking center added to their outdoor living patio. As with patio designs themselves, your BBQ island can be simple and focused on the cooking itself, or it can be expanded to house anything you have in the kitchen. The most popular outdoor kitchen design requested features the grill and work space along with an attached or adjacent patio bar island. This isn’t a surprising mix, since Arizona patio designs are made for relaxing and entertaining.

Whether your outdoor living patio is constructed from natural stone or pavers, the most often requested built-in barbeques design has an adobe base and a tile or smooth stone top. It is the natural compliment to your southwestern adobe home and can be made to match the walls of the house exactly or to pick up the color in your Arizona patio design’s material choice. One thing you should always consider when selecting your new patio’s surface and what the grill island will be constructed from is whether you want these features to stand out or blend in with the scenery.

Many times the location of a home will guide a homeowner is choosing the colors and materials for their individual Arizona patio design’s overall appearance. Homes in the middle of a development will often have privacy walls around the outdoor living patio to block out the surrounding view. Here there is no reason to consider how the open desert plain will look with the coloring and materials used for the flooring surface or the outdoor kitchen elements.

For those homes where the panorama of the natural desert plains is the backdrop of their outdoor living room, selecting  materials for built-in barbeques that coordinate with nature adds a very relaxed feeling. The fluidity of such a tactic in patio design and BBQ island used in this particular backyard is easily seen. The top is crafted from a material color that matches the desert floor perfectly. The low slung adobe wall and base of the grill island, as well as the natural stone used in the patio design echo the distant mountains coloring. The finished look is lovely yet simple and very relaxing.

When you are ready to add an outdoor living room patio with a professionally crafted BBQ island behind your Pheonix area home, do be sure to contact Desert Crest. We would love to discuss the possibilities of creating the perfect outdoor living patio for you.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Nothing suits your home and Phoenix landscaping as well as a water feature created uniquely for you.

Introducing your guests to the ambiance of your home begins at the curb with the big picture of any residential property, a house well framed by the overall landscaping. Well balanced landscaping in Phoenix includes both soft and hardscape elements. The presence of water features like this lovely front entrance fountain instantly adds a multi-faceted benefits to your outdoor foyer.

The fountain and bowl construction add texture and color in an interesting display of mixed hardscape elements. While not technically softscaping, the water in your front door apron is a softening visual effect, but also adds sound that no desert plant can ever bestow. Additionally, your front courtyard water feature of a well placed fountain is a source of natural cooling element and raw serotonin released into the air. Knowing all the wonders moving water and its container can add to your front door welcome makes it easy to understand why so many Phoenix area homeowners are eager to add courtyard fountains and outliving area waterfalls to their landscaping.

Designing just the right water feature entails a keen sense of color and great working knowledge of the materials and hardware capabilities. Yes, you can buy a complete kit courtyard fountains at a major retail store, but then your water feature’s going to look like everyone else’s in town. For discerning homeowners, the right water feature element in their front yard landscaping in Phoenix and the surrounding communities will be unique. The design and colors of materials used will pull in the different features of their home to perfection and not just sit there looking like it was pulled out of a box and slapped into place.

Custom water features are made possible by Arizona landscapers around Phoenix who are very skilled with masonry, stone and tile construction. With an experienced contractor, your outdoor foyer’s fountain can be custom sized and shaped to best fit and compliment the space. You will not have this type of choice with the cookie cutter outdoor fountains found at the closest big box store. You will find more value and home enhancement with a unique and tailor made fountain in your Phoenix landscaping.

Why settle for something suitable, when your front entry fountain can be perfectly matched and look right at home? Nothing says welcome like a well blended design and that musical note emitted from moving water. A call to Desert Crest, of Ranking Arizona landscapers in the Top 10, will have your custom designed water feature quickly into the planning stage. You’ll be amazed at the instant value these Phoenix landscaping elements add to your outdoor areas with a superior masonry craftsman on the job.

Popularity: 23% [?]