Ask This Old House landscape designer Jenn Nawada heads to Phoenix to recreate the desert in a homeowner’s front yard.
SUBSCRIBE to This Old House: http://bit.ly/SubscribeThisOldHouse
Time: 1 day
Cost: $2,000 and Up
Skill Level: Moderate
Tools List for Creating a Desert Landscape:
Shovel
Wheelbarrow
Hand truck
Level
Compacter
Shopping List:
Soil
Boulders
Variety of desert plants
Cardboard
_” stone
Modular pavers
Steps:
1. Dig out the outline of a walkway about 3’ wide and 3-4” deep. Give the outline a slight curve to add visual interest to the walkway.
2. To mimic the hills of the desert, shovel piles of soil onto the landscape into seemingly random mounds.
3. Determine a few locations to place boulders in the landscape. Dig holes in those locations about 4” deep and roughly the width of the boulder being placed.
4. Carefully load each boulder onto a hand truck, wheel it into position, and roll the boulder into its final place. Backfill around the hole to make it look like it really belongs there.
5. Stage the variety of desert plants across the landscape. Things aren’t really clumped together in the desert, so keep the plants spread out. Be mindful of when plants bloom, if ever, to have an even spread of color across the landscape.
6. Once each plant is in its desired position, plant them all with the shovel. Dig down just about as deep as the root ball and twice as wide.
7. To plant cacti, wrap a piece of cardboard around the needles and move the cactus only by holding onto the cardboard.
8. Give everything a good watering.
9. Put down a layer of _” stone on the outlined walkway and level it.
10. Compact the walkway with a compacter.
11. Lay down the pavers over the walkway base in a running bond pattern.
Resources:
In any landscape design, Jenn recommends looking for natural cues in the surrounding area to recreate in a controlled way in your yard. In this case, she identified an abundance of small stones coating the ground, plants spread far apart from each other, and undulating hills. Those cues informed the design in the homeowner’s front yard.
Jenn installed boulders, red yucca, lantana, bougainvillea, a few variety of cacti, and a Chilean mesquite tree. These can be found at nurseries, particularly in the Southwest region of the US and in zones 9 and 10.
Expert assistance for this segment was provided by Rod Pappas and Xeriscapes Unlimited, Inc. (http://xeriscapes.com), A-1 Materials Phoenix (http://www.a-1materialsrocksupply.com), All Season Nursery (http://www.allseasongrowers.com), and Horizon Irrigation (http://www.horizononline.com).
About Ask This Old House TV:
Homeowners have a virtual truckload of questions for us on smaller projects, and we’re ready to answer. Ask This Old House solves the steady stream of home improvement problems faced by our viewers—and we make house calls! Ask This Old House features some familiar faces from This Old House, including Kevin O’Connor, general contractor Tom Silva, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, and landscape contractor Roger Cook.
Follow This Old House and Ask This Old House:
Facebook: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseFB
Twitter: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseTwitter
http://bit.ly/AskTOHTwitter
Pinterest: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHousePinterest
Instagram: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseIG
http://bit.ly/AskTOHIG
Tumblr: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseTumblr
For more on This Old House and Ask This Old House, visit us at: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseWebsite
How to Create a Desert Landscape | Ask This Old House
https://www.youtube.com/user/thisoldhouse/
31 Comments
Big no I didn’t like it !!!
What kind of granite is that? is that crushed granite or some other name, I need this for starters?
Beautiful but I can never live in the desert.
Rahja would have been pissed, I didn’t see anyone rough up those roots.
can you guys do follow up videos? I'd really like to see how some of these home and yard projects turned out after some time.
Why.
Bougainvillea 🤮 God, I hate those.
Beautiful
This looks so amateurish. The papers are the wrong type, they are uneven, the arc is not good, and just all around amateur looking. Very disappointing.
That honeysuckle could have been salvaged smh
Chilean mesquite are not native to Arizona. The velvet mesquite and honey mesquite are native to Arizona.
I also live in Az. But, I need a dog friendly yard. Any suggests? And what are some of the trees that will live here? Thank you
Honestly, the most offensive landscaping video I’ve ever seen. Did I just witness to people murder a gorgeous huge old honeysuckle bush by saying, take it out? And then they just proceed to murder it like it’s nothing? They purport to love plants in nature but this video says otherwise. Patently offensive. Philistines. Cretins. No connection to nature whatsoever. They’re just playing checkers out there.
3:01 a flat yard is good lmao 🤦♂️
It looks like a west facing home. I bet someone put that honeysuckle in to block the AZ sun from coming in the bedroom and making it uninhabitable.
Don’t use the new gold lantana.. it’s not good in winter… the purple is much better… blooms profusely year round.. attracts butterflies. If you want a low grower… the reds and pinks are usually big. And I can’t recall if they look good year round or not, but I’ve lived with both new gold and purple… purple is better.
Always smart to remove shade from in front of your windows in Phoenix.
desert
The camera guy wasn’t having the best day
Boring
I put bushes right below my windows on purpose to create security. Criminal's aren't as likely to go through a window if they have to go through a thorny bush to get to the window.
….. native?? More like home depot starter pack
I use those pavers in my business all the time. They're called Belgard pavers if anyone was curious. Pro tip, set the border in concrete and rebar first and then cut in the rest of the pavers in the middle while setting them at a 45° angle to the house. It's more work but it looks hella clean.
That tree though attracts bees like crazy!!!
They talk about planting native then proceed to not plant a single native plant.
No one who actually uses a wheelchair would want a walkway that bumpy
I'm in high plains desert in Colorado and I just let things naturally grow and pulled what I didn't want and in my opinion it's looking naturally good 😃
Did you see the look on the guys face in the background with a blue shirt when they pull the honeysuckle bush out🤣
Liked look and the procedure except, for cutting the pavers. I'm not going to do that. Also, no needles.
Yes! awesome design!
in 2022 that is 10g in material