Rosemary bushes

Most winters I buy a rosemary bush cut like a Christmas tree. I put tiny lights and decorations in it and put it outside our front door. In spring time I plant it somewhere in my yard.

I don't now if this rosemary can be used for cooking but they smell lovely when they are touched. They are easy and doesn't need a lot of water.

You need to cut them a couple of times a year to keep them in shape. Trimming them makes them thicker and they can be cut into a hedge.

You can trim them into many different shapes. I like my round one, it's so cute.

Last year one of my plants suddenly looked like is was going to die. 2/3 of the plant just dried up. We cut of the dead part and now it is back on track again growing as ever. 

Read more about rosemary here;

Bonnie plants

The old farmer's almanac

How to built a pool - Layout

Layout your pool is rather easy but I didn't take any chances for just 100 dollars. At last it starts to feel real, it is going to be a pool here. The layout on the ground will give you a hunch how it's going to look.

Blue stake told me that the pool should be marked in white color but the guy that lay out the pool said nobody uses that. If you are going to layout your pool yourself remember to add 6 inch for the pool shell. The blue markings are the light, skimmer and the grotto.

More Baja Fairy Duster

Baja Fairy Duster

See how funny the flowers looks but I love the strong red color they have. Some of the pods have released their seeds.

Inside I have covered my pot with plastic to keep the soil moist and maybe a little bit warmer and see it's working. 

My first grown Baja Fairy Duster plant. I hope it will survive and grow into a big plant I can move outside.

How to built a pool - permits

The Permit

After the drawings it is time for the permit. I live in Gilbert so I took my drawing to the Development Service at 90 E Civic Center Dr. I was so nervous, think if I forgot anything.

To get a permit in Gilbert, go to town of Gilbert's website, they have checklists and you can print the application and fill it out at home. Then you are all prepared when you get there. I was there one early Wednesday and it was only me there. If you are going to have a gas heater you also need some information from the company that are going to install the gas heater. My subcontractor faxed me a drawing of my yard with all information I needed.

Here is what I needed, read your checklist to make sure you have all information you need, if you miss some information and have to add it there could be an additional fee:

• Two copies of the plot plan showing location of pool/spa
• Setbacks from property line and structures
• Location of pool/spa equipment
• Two copies of pool structure engineering drawing
• Gas lines associated with pool heater requires two copies of site plan with lengths of gas piping line, type of piping, size pf segments, BTU's ratings of appliances served and burial depth

I copied all my paper so I had a copy myself but when I got my permit I got one of the copies back. It cost 285 dollars, spring 2008. You have 180 days till the first inspection then you get another 180 days.

The application looks a little different now, for example, you have to tell the names of your subcontractor and their license numbers. 

Palm Trees - Queen Palm

The most common palm tree in an Arizona yard is probably the queen palm. It grows with a good speed and don’t get too big. It can though get as high as 30 to 40 feet tall. 

The palm tree comes original from Brazil and likes a lot of water and nutrients. The queen palms roots grows more outwards then downwards so it is best to move the dripping system emitters farther away from the trunk as it grows.

These three palm trees were planted at the same time but the one to the right did not get enough water during a long period. 

More pictures that show how different palm trees grow. All 4 of them planted at same time. 

When to cut branches. 
Some gardener loves to cut down branches, no brown branches can be left on the tree. That is not a good philosophy for the tree, it needs it branches. Only cut down branches that are hanging down. If a tip of a branch is brown and looks dead you can cut of just the brown part. 

How to plant a tree.

When you plant a palm tree make sure the hole is wide enough specially if you live on hard soil. The hole should be 10 to 20 % larger than the container the plant comes in. When you put the plant in the hole it should be at same level as the ground. Dig the hole a little deeper and put in some new soil. Mix 50 % mulch and 50 % soil. After you put in the plant put the mixing around the plant. After you done, water a lot, and you can also add some root stimulator.

More about Queen Palms;

How to Care for a Queen Palm

Queen Palm
Palm tree care
How to plant a tree video

How to built a pool - Drawings

More about drawings

Slides

This was the hardest part of the drawing. I had no clue how to draw the slide. And I had no clue how big it was going to be. I talked to my neighbors, and measured theirs. But it wasn't before I talked to the company that builds the slides and caves I really understood how big the water feature was. If a slide/grotto/waterfall is higher then 8 feet it has to have special engineering. The best way to draw it is to contact a couple of companies that builds water features and explain what you want and they will send you drawings and measurements on the features.

If you go with a regular pool building company it seems that you can choose between 40 or 50 square feet grotto/slide/waterfall but if you talk to a rockwork company their standard work seems to be 50 or 60 square feet. The 60 square feet grotto has a bench with a shape of a half circle and the smaller 50 square feet grotto has a rectangular bench. A small grotto/slide is about 13 to 15 feet wide, 6,5 feet deep and about 5,5 feet high.  A bigger grotto/slide can be about 15 to 16 feet wide, 8 to 9 feet deep and 5,5 to 7 feet high. Make sure your HOA don't have any regulations about heights of the slide and how close to the neighbor wall it can be. Gilbert town has a 3 feet limit for all kind of building.

Decking

How narrow you can do the decking differ between the decking company. Some say they can do between 12 and 18 inch other say 18.

Sleeves and Aerator

Mark out the aerator and what kind of sleeves you want. If you wonder where you need to put the umbrella sleeves, you can hold an umbrella at different places at different times during the day to figure out how to get shade on the area you want. Just remember that the sun is also moving throughout the year.

Engineering drawings
This is the second step and if this will go quick and cheap or take a couple of days and be a lot more expensive is up to what kind of pool you want. We built a standard pool, just a lot longer than usually, with a standard slide/grotto.

I found a company that sold me a standard engineering drawings for 40 dollars. And it was ready to pick up as soon the engineer had a look at my drawings and decide it was a standard pool. For the price you get two of all your drawings. When you apply for a permit to build the pool you have to bring two of everything but you will get one of them back when you get your permit.

To be able to use a standard engineering drawing the slide have to be lower then 8 feet and the pool have to be 5 feet from not only the house, but from about everything, like patio columns.

Trampoline

Something that is fun to have in your backyard is a trampoline. It is very common with injuries on trampolines so a few safety rules are probably in place;

·       Have a net around the trampoline.  

·       Don't let too many kids be on the trampoline at a time. 

·       Jump without shoes.

There are probably more things to take in consider.

Be careful in summer for areas that are made of metal but are not covered up, they get really hot. 

Other thing to think about is to make sure it is secured in the ground. Even if Arizona usually doesn't get hit by storms and tornadoes it can still be windy enough to move your trampoline. 

One day our trampoline was not in our yard anymore but our neighbor was a lucky owner of a trampoline in their pool.

We were lucky that nobody got hurt or that anything broke more than our trampoline. To move it back to our yard we had to take it apart. Some parts were destroyed when it was moved by the wind but we could order some spare part from the trampoline company. The trampoline company is not covering any damage on the trampoline or to the surrounding unless all legs have been secured to the ground. To be on the safe side secure all legs and document your safety arrangement.

The Drawing

The pool drawing. You can draw your pool yourself it is not hard but if you are not use to draw drawing and count scale it will probably take awhile. Do not count on getting it right the first time. Remember the scale has to be 1: 8.00 which means 1 inch on your drawing is 8 feet in real life. Mark diameter and distance to wall and house on the drawing. When the pool is going to be drawn on the ground, it is drawn 6 inch wider then on your drawings because of the shell. Make sure you have that in mind so there are no inch missing. Mark where North are and the scale. Do also attach a drawing on how you want your pool depth to be.


Size.

There are a lot of distances you need to take in consider when you draw your pool. The distance between the pool and the wall, the distance between the pool and the house, if you are going to have a gas heater the distance between the wall and the exhaust pipe. Different cities can have different regulation on this and even your HOA can have some regulations that you have to take in consider when you draw your pool. If you want to have a slide maybe your HOA has regulation on how high it can be and how close to the wall. Gilbert has a 3 feet to any building limit. If you have a slide, the pool has to be 14 feet wide where the slide ends.

Steps.

How many steps you should have depends on how deep your pool is going to be at the end where the step is. A step should be 12 inch. If you want one of the steps to be bigger for you to sit on, a depth of 18 inch is good. The depth is usually measured from the water level so the first step could be - 6 inch, the next one -18 inch and so on.

Benches.

Most builders have a certain amount of linear feet of bench and step included in the price. How much varies and this is probably one of those thing that you can get more of for free. The benches are usually -18 inch below waterline. If you are planning to have a deep pool, a bench can help swimmers to get out of the pool more easy, to rest on when they swim, or just have somewhere to wait for a friend coming down the slide.

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea, a fast growing beautiful plant that will cover your whole house with flowers if you let it. If you are a pool owner this plant is not for you, because eventually will all this lovely flowers dry up, fall off and, fly away and end up in your pool.

We had this amazing bougainvillea in font of our house. We had. After a while we had it with all that dry flower flying around. When the winter came we didn't cover it and a few days with frost killed it.

A bougainvillea can be cut down a lot to make room for other plans or to keep it from cover up something, like your windows. Just don't cut off to much of the plant at one time, it will make it weak. You can cut it anytime but I would recommend not to cut it during the coldest or the hottest period of the year. 

Read more about how to take care of a bougainvillea;

Bougainvillea 101

How to Grow Bougainvillea

How to build a pool - Drawings

The Drawing

The pool drawing. You can draw your pool yourself it is not hard but if you are not use to draw drawing and count scale it will probably take awhile. Do not count on getting it right the first time. The easiest way to draw the pool is probably to use a CAD program on the computer, if you are not comfortable with computers you can draw it by hand. Remember the scale has to be 1: 8.00 which means 1 inch on your drawing is 8 feet in real life. Mark diameter and distance to wall and house on the drawing. When the pool is going to be drawn on the ground, it is drawn 6 inch wider then on your drawings because of the shell. Make sure you have that in mind so there are no inch missing. Those small inches made the difference of a big or a small grotto for us. So maybe it is a good idea to draw them in one of your drawing, the one that you keep for yourself just to make sure everything is going to fit and still have the distance. Mark where North are and the scale. Do also attach a drawing on how you want your pool depth to be.

Measure.

 Measure your backyard and draw it. If you using your lot drawing observer that the walls around the yard might decrease the "actual" area of your yard, so to be on the safe side start with measure your yard by yourself. If you have a patio draw that and if it has columns you need to draw those too. I was told that if our pool was going to be closer then 5 feet to the patio columns the pool where going to need extra steel reinforcement, which means a special engineering drawing and more steel. Mark where the entrance are and how wide the access gate is. Is there something that narrows the way down like AC draw them in too and put out the distance.

Shape.

Look into pool stores and go online to look on different shapes. When you drawing your own pool it can have the most strangest shape but if you are going to sell the house in the future it's maybe a good idea to not go too extreme. The easiest way is to buy a circle temples and draw circles in different shapes next to each other and then connect them to an all over shape.

More about drawings later.

How to build a pool

Now when we have been thinking about all different parts of a pool it is time to start building. To build a pool is a process with many steps. Here are the steps if you building a pool with a heater and no spa. 

The Process;
Drawings
Permits
Layout
Utility marking
Excavation
Plumbing
Steel
Electric
Gas
1:st Inspection
Shotcrete
Water feature
Decking
Tile/Mosaic
2:nd Inspection
Interior
Start up

Hibiscus

Hibiscus, a lovely plant.

As always there are many different hibiscuses. Before you buy one make sure you get one that fits your temperature zone. You would think that because they sell the plant in the store it will grow fine in your yard but that isn't always the case. The Arizona sun can burn a plant really bad, even kill it, if it's not a "full sun plant". 

In general if the plants information sign says it can be in the sun and it has thin leaves you should check it with other sources. Maybe the plant can take some sun but not direct midday-burning-Arizona sun. Make sure to have some bigger, tougher plants shading the more delicate once. This can be a problem when you starting up your yard from scratch.

There is a hibiscus that can take the Arizona heat. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, also called Rose of China, Hawaiian hibiscus or Chinese hibiscus is a hot climate hibiscus. But even that plant like some shade from the hottest sunlight.

In winter time it is best to cover up the hibiscus if the temperature goes under 32 F/0 C.

More about hibiscuses later, in the meanwhile read more about the plant here;

Dupont Nursery,

How to Raise Hibiscus Plants in Arizona

Hardy Hibiscus Plants

The Temperature Zone for Hibiscus

Plant Care Guides

More things to think about. Part 6

More things to make a decision on before you start

Here is some information and advice but please notice that this is only my thoughts. Before you take a decision on something get information from more than one source.

Pumps

As with everything else there are a lot of different pumps to choose between. Cheaper and simpler pumps or more expensive and efficient. The most common brand here in Arizona is Pentair and Hayward. If you are going to have a slide or waterfall the pool company is probably going to recommend you to buy at least two pumps. If you buy a more efficient one you only need one pump and some valve, that is less pipes and less installations fees. A pump that has more than one speed is very economical. The pump use a higher speed to clean the pool during the night when the electricity is cheaper and during the day the pump use a lower speed to move around the water. You will be able to save the money you paid for the more expensive pump in no time and this kind of pump makes much less noise. More and more state gets laws that require that new pools are built with a variable speed pump, California has one already.

Other things to think about is what kind of Cleaning and Water treatment system you want. Salt water or Chlorine. 

As everything else there are many different kind of filter. Cartridge Filter, D.E. (Diatomaceous earth) filters, or Sand Filters. More about this later.

Mist 

A mist system around the pool makes it usable any time during the day, even in the hottest Arizona summer. A little advice, don’t go for a small system that you plug to your yard hose, it will not cool you off enough. You need a mist pump to get the right amount of mist to cool off the yard,

here is how our backyard look when the pump is on a high level.

Rhubarb

Rhubarb pie. Oh, it is so good. Believe it or not but you can grow rhubarb in Arizona. It needs well-drained and fertile soil. Living on old farmer land this is perfect for rhubarb. Our rhubarb plant was huge and we made many pies every year until we left the yard to a neighbor to keep an eye on it. When we came back all plants was happy except our rhubarb, they drown. After that we couldn’t get any new plants to grow. This year I am trying again and now I am even trying to plant them in my herb/potato-land. I think it is not going to be the best spot but I feel desperate.

We bought a couple packs of rhubarb.

When you buying a rhubarb plant you only get the roots. Dig a not too deep hole and placed the roots.

Sometimes the roots have already start to spout in the bag. It is OK to cover the spout with soil but I try to let some part of it stick up.

I will come back with a recipe on rhubarb pie if my plants survive.

Read more about rhubarb;

The old farmer's almanac

The Rhubarb Compendium

Building a pool? Part 5

More things to make a decision on before you start

Here is some information and advice but please notice that this is only my thoughts. 

Interior

First you have to decide if you want pebble or plaster. Plaster is cheaper but has to be replaster after a couple of years, pebble is probably going to last forever. There are different kind of brand on pebbles, for example Pebble Tec and Baja pebble. Usually is the interior company using just one brand, so if you have chosen company you probably have to go with their brand. There are two or three different sizes on the pebble. The smoothest looks almost like plaster. There are also different colors on the pebble. The color looks different under water so try to find a pool company that has the different colors in their pools so you can get an idea how the interior is going to look under water. The pebble also looks different in shallow and deep water.

Lights

You have to decide on how many and what kind of light. If you buy LED lights you can change the color on the lights and get other colors on your interior and also run lightshows. LED lights cost more then double as much as regular pool light but runs more then 6 time longer, you will probably never have to change a bulb.

OBS. Running the lights during the day will not change the color of you pools interior.

Ask your pool electrician if you need more than one light in your pool and where you should put it/them. The people that will do the layout on the ground can probably also give you some advice.

You have to draw in the lights on your drawing, the excavation company need to know where you want them when they start digging, they will dig out room for the lights and the electrician need to know the distance for the wires to give an accurate price proposal.

Lavender

I love my Lavender. The color and the strong smell is so different to all the other plants, read cactus, that grows in my yard.

There are many different kind of Lavender, the one I have can take the sun and heat in the summer but it looks best during spring and fall. I cut of all the dried flowers when the blooming season is over. If I want to save some for cooking or for some good-smelling-mini-pillows I have to remember to cut them before they dry.

Read more about Lavender here;

Growing Lavender 
Better Homes and Gardens

Cooking with Lavender
How to Dry and Store Herbs