Author: csDevTeam

Adding landscaping enhances the natural appearance of your yard, complementing the exterior of your home or business as well. The right landscape design can drastically improve your curb appeal and increase the value of your property. A good landscape design will also reduce the amount of work you must do to maintain your property while presenting a well-tailored appearance that shows you care about the way your property looks.

Appearance

Landscaping can instantly improve the appearance of your property, presenting a neat, clean, and appealing picture to the world. Adding soft- or hardscaping elements can bring out the architectural features of your property and create an even more inviting home or business. A great landscape design will show that you care about the appearance of your property and the impression it makes on others.

Maintenance

Yards without any sort of landscape design can be difficult to care for, resulting in wasted water due to limited access to certain areas. It can also be impossible to maintain a deck, path, or pool that is overrun by the plants in your yard. Landscape design creates a natural outdoor environment that is both easy and efficient to maintain.

Value

Just like many home improvements, the right landscaping design can increase the value of your property. Landscaping not only improves the appearance of your property, but often the amount of usable space as well. Furthermore, when selling your home or business, an appealing exterior can result in a quicker sale that demands a higher price. Studies have shown that properties with landscaping already in place consistently sell for a higher price than those with no landscaping, with increases in price ranging from 5.5-12.7%.

If you’re ready to discover how a smart landscaping design can enhance the value of your home or business, call Santa Rita Landscaping today at (520) 623-0421. We can help you design, create, and maintain your commercial or residential landscape in Tucson. Visit us on the web to check out our full range of landscaping and maintenance services or read through the other articles on our blog.

The purpose of landscaping is to improve the appearance of the natural land around your Tucson home or business. A successful landscape design project should complement and enhance the exterior of your property without destroying or detracting from the natural desert landscape. Understanding the factors that make a landscape design successful is essential to creating the perfect outdoor environment for your needs.

Beauty and Functionality

A successful landscape design should be both visually appealing and functional. Although plants can be beautiful, if your yard is overrun by greenery, you won’t be able to access certain areas of your property. The idea behind landscaping is to combine elements of organic and inorganic décor to create an outdoor living space you can enjoy. This means integrating flowers, shrubs, and trees with pathways, trellises, fencing, gates, and patios or decks to achieve both livability and curb appeal. Your landscape designer should take your personal preferences and needs into mind when he draws up a layout for your yard. Whether you want to add a garden, play area, or entertainment spot, these elements can be combined with your landscaping to culminate in the perfect yard for your needs.

Sustainability

Another key hallmark of a successful landscaping project is sustainability. Flowers and other plants should be appropriate to the environment to ensure they will return each year. Desert landscaping in Tucson often requires that plants be drought-resistant, tolerant to high levels of sun and heat, and hardy down to temperatures near or below freezing. Using plants that cannot survive in these conditions will only mean additional costs to remove and replace them in the future. In many cases, creating a landscaping design also includes adding an irrigation system to make caring for softscaping elements easy and efficient.

Santa Rita Landscaping can help you find the perfect landscaping solution that will meet your residential or commercial needs. We also offer award-winning commercial and homebuilder construction services throughout the Tucson area. If you would like more information, please call (520) 623-0421 or contact us online.

Vines make an excellent addition to any landscaping project. Lush, flowering vines bring color, texture, and shade to your home’s exterior by adding a vertical element to your desert yard. There are a variety of twining and climbing vines that thrive in the warm environment of Tucson, so keep reading to explore just a few of your landscaping options.

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea vines are prized not only for their beauty, but for their hardiness as well. This popular landscaping vine remains evergreen during mild winters, but can survive even when the temperature drops below freezing. Although it may die in cold winters, it will typically come back the following spring. Bougainvillea will produce flowers for weeks at a time during warmer seasons; its small white flowers are surrounded by three large bracts that range in color from golden yellow to deep red or purple. The most common for the Tucson area are the San Diego Red and Fuchsia Barbara Hurst. This vine can withstand full sun, but should be placed in areas that offer some protection from the wind.

Mexican Flame Vine

The Mexican flame vine is an extremely hardy, pest-resistant, and drought-tolerant vine that is perfect for desert landscaping. Mexican flame vine grows quickly in nearly any type of soil and is able to take full sunlight. It works well on a variety of outdoor surfaces, including trellises, fences, mailboxes, and porch railings. This vine produces clusters of orange-red flowers that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies to your yard.

Queen’s Wreath

Queen’s wreath is a perennial vine well-suited for hot summers and cold winters. In the summer and fall, this vine produces vibrant pink or white flowers with heart-shaped petals. Queen’s wreath grows well on trellises, arbors, and fences, providing a comfortable shady spot to escape the summer heat. Because this vine can be very aggressive, strangling other plants for food and water, it should be planted well away from other softscaping elements.

Let Santa Rita Landscaping help you create the perfect outdoor environment with vines, flowers, and other desert plants. Contact us by calling (520) 623-0421 to speak with one of our Tucson landscaping specialists today. You can find out more about our residential and commercial landscaping services on our website.

Flowering plants add color to your desert landscaping. The Southern Arizona climate can support a number of lovely low-water perennials in every color of the rainbow. These flowering plants can be used to create splashes of color, borders, and other colorful elements throughout your Tucson yard.

Mexican Bush Sage

Mexican bush sage produces vibrantly-colored purple flowers on long stalks that are well known for attracting hummingbirds. This flowering shrub is ideal for many landscaping applications and will bloom throughout the summer and fall months. Mexican bush sage is both drought- and freeze-tolerant, meaning it will come back every year to add color to your yard.

Roses

Did you know that roses can thrive in Tucson’s dry, hot climate? Roses are a traditional favorite, producing fragrant blooms in any color you desire. Although roses do require more water in the summer, they will do well with either manual watering or a drip irrigation system, as long as the system can be tailored to provide regular watering.

Pink Dwarf Nerium Oleander

Oleander is an extremely hardy flowering plant that can survive just about anything, including neglect and severe drought or hot weather. Pink dwarf Nerium oleander grows as a compact evergreen shrub that develops pale pink blooms in late spring through late fall, often flowering as early as April and as late as November.

Gaura

Gaura is a semi-evergeen perennial that is a popular poolside plant. White or pink blooms appear throughout the summer and fall, which are said to resemble butterflies. As a native of Mexico and the southern U.S., gaura is a hardy desert plant that loves full or partial sun. It is a fast-growing plant that can also stand below-freezing temperatures in the winter.

Are you ready to create the perfect desert landscape right outside your own home? Contact Santa Rita Landscaping at (520) 623-0421 to discuss how we can enhance your Tucson yard with a custom landscape design suited to your exact needs and preferences. Check out our website to view examples of our local work!

Pests have no place in your desert garden, but can you get rid of them without the concerns that chemical pesticides present? The answer is yes—there are a number of all-natural pest control tricks to enhance the beauty and health of your Tucson landscaping. These methods are safe for use in yards with children and pets, and will even protect your local ecosystem when used in place of toxic chemicals.

Eliminate Standing Water

Especially in the dry desert climate, pests are drawn to sources of fresh water. Check your landscaping regularly to spot standing water or leaks in your yard’s irrigation system. Contact a landscape management service to handle any water issues—this will not only make your yard less appealing for pests, but save you money on wasted water as well.

Use Diatomaceous Earth

Made from the fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton, diatomaceous earth is a crushed powder that can be spread over soil and other landscape areas. When insects, snails, or slugs move over areas that contain diatomaceous earth, the powder causes them to dehydrate, eliminating them without the use of chemicals. Diatomaceous earth is effective on many types of pests, including ants, fleas, silverfish, cockroaches, ticks, tomato hornworms, beetles, and slugs.

Create Homemade Ant Baits

Boric acid is a very low-toxicity mineral used in many green pest management practices. You can get rid of ant activity in your landscaping by dissolving one teaspoon of boric acid into two cups of water. Add six tablespoons of sugar to sweeten the mix. Pour the mixture into a jar lid or small dish, then place one to two cotton balls into the solution and set the lid in the suspected path of ants. Over time, the ants will remove pieces of the cotton balls and take them back to the colony to feed others.

Santa Rita Landscaping is dedicated to providing ecologically-friendly Tucson landscaping and landscape maintenance in Tucson. Call us today at (520) 623-0421 to discover how our experienced landscape professionals can enhance the look of your home. Check out our blog for more gardening, landscaping, and lawn maintenance tips!