Creating Arizona Backyard Landscapes for over 20 years
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Looking To Renovate Your Phoenix Landscape Design?

Arizona Landscape Spa with Water FeatureWith Arizona’s great outdoor living opportunities, updating for outdoor entertaining is always a good idea.  Family fun, personal enjoyment and increasing your home’s value are all benefits of an Arizona landscape design remodel.  Updating your outdoor living space can be a simple facelift by adding planter boxes, colorful plants or a water feature to creating a new outdoor room or kitchen.

  • Create a separate outdoor room.Arizona Outdoor Fireplace
  • Develop a space to be able to go to relax and unwind.
  • Add or extend a paver patio to increase your entertaining space and decrease your maintenance upkeep!
  • Create a gathering spot with an outdoor kitchen.
  • Add interest and color with planter boxes & pots.
  • Take a vacation in your own backyard!
  • This patio firepit not only provides family but serves as a beautiful centerpiece in this Arizona landscape design.
  • Good landscape designs are anchored by focal points.  One trend is to use water features.
  • Backyard BBQ's bolster a backyard's entertainment value.
  • Great way to hide pool equipment with a visually appealing wall.
  • Artificial turf on this sideyard creates a great dog run!
  • Our clients BBQ before we built a custom backyard BBQ in this spot.
  • Future spot of a patio firepit and seat wall for our clients to spend countless hours with family & friends.

Az Backyard Transformation in this Phoenix Landscape Design

We recently completed a Phoenix landscape design which transformed our clients backyard into a spectacular place to spend time with family and friends.  The design created an outdoor space which our clients can enjoy day & night.  Our clients can truly skip the resort and enjoy their own beautiful Arizona backyard design!  They now can have a “Staycation” in their own backyard!!

Choosing the Perfect Design for Your Arizona Backyard Landscapes

Good landscape design will enhance your home, reduce your work, and provide what you need and want in your outdoor living spaces.  Good designs should look good all year.  A well-designed landscape should provide a retreat where homeowners can rest, relax, entertain and enjoy the outdoors!  Whether you need a new landscape or it’s time for a redo, starting with a good landscape design will reduce frustration and increase your satisfaction with the end results.

Scottsdale Landscape Design

Scottsdale Landscape Design

Here are just a few helpful landscape tips:

- Hardscapingwalkways, patios and  pool decks – should be roughly a third of the overall space.  Hardscaping can be attractive, servicable and it doesn’t require water or mowing.

-Turfnatural turf or artificial turf – also can be about a third of the landscape space.  Natural turf is the most water, labor and pesticide consuming plant in the landscape, so keep just enough for visual balance and  play area.  Artificial turf or putting greens are becoming more popular in Arizona landscape designs because gives the look of natural grass without the maintenance and cost of water & pesticides.

- Maintenance — Reduce maintenance on turf areas — Don’t plant shrubs, perennials and other lone plants in the turf and avoid turf on extreme slopes, narrow or awkward areas where the mower won’t fit or that will require a lot of edging.

- Edging — Good edging will reinforce your design line and help keep grass in the lawn and out of other areas.  Pavers, brick and concrete are some of the more common materials used as a border.  If planting beds contain creeping ground cover and shrubs, it’s a good idea to separate the two with edging.

- Plant Selection — Select plants that won’t take over beds.  Everybody know to choose plants that are native or adapted, but are you aware that some well-adapted plants may be spreaders?

Arizona backyard landscapes

Gilbert landscaping

- Irrigation — A well planned and designed irrigation system is vital in your Arizona landscape design!  In Arizona we can’t depend on the rain to keep our plants alive.  It’s important to audit your existing system regularly along with changing your watering cycles with each season.  Often once an irrigation problem is identifed they are usually easy to fix.

If your thinking about starting your new landscape or wanting to renovate your older landscape, calling a reputable landscape designer and contractor could save you time, money and a lot of frustration in the long run.  At Dream Retreats we’ve been designing and installing residential landscapes in the Phoenix and surrounding areas for over 20 years.  We offer FREE in-home consulations.  Give us a call or contact us through our website!

Importance of a Good Design in Your Arizona Landscaping

Landscape design is an important part in creating a yard with good flow and functionality.  Planting random plants and trees around your yard is a good way to cause a landscape mess.  Different plants have different water and sunlight requirements and they grow to different sizes.  If you plant several plants close together without any idea they each get very big in size, you’re going to have some issues.

Chandler Landscape Putting Green

Chandler Landscape Putting Green

A yard becomes more valuable if it’s not only beautiful, but functional as well.  Whether you incorporate a patio seating area with a fire or water feature, a recreational area or an outdoor kitchen, a functioning yard allows you to enjoy it more often.  Figure out what you would like to do in your yard in order to create the perfect dream retreat!

A larger yard can be easier to deal with then you break it up into sections.  Create a dining space, lounging area, outdoor BBQ, garden and lawn by adding borders or even a patio.  Another idea is adding flower pots around a designated area to give a sense of being in a different “room.”  You could even place different sized pots throughout your landscape.  The different heights of pots and flower colors will liven up the space.  Keep like colors together for great visual flow but get creative with patterns.

The perfect landscape starts with research and ideas.  Landscape design is more than buying what you like, it is about incorporating what you like into a cohesive and functional space.  A good landscape designer or architect can assist you in creating a beautiful yet functional landscape design that will do well in the hot Arizona climate.  They will understand the growing conditions and select plants which thrive in the Arizona weather.

Thin-Overlay Landscape Paver Pool Decks

Arizona’s climate allows for homeowners to enjoy their outdoor living spaces year-round.  For many Arizona homeowners a swimming pool is one element of their outdoor entertaining options.  Along with the pool always comes the pool deck which is an important functional and visual aspect to an Arizona landscape design.  Over the last few years, thin-overlay landscape pavers have overwhelmingly become the hardscape of choice for pool decks with our clients.

Scottsdale Landscape Marbella Pavers

Remodel pavers can be used to overlay many different surfaces.  Thin-overlay pavers are primarily used on pool decks and patios.  These thin remodel pavers are installed over an existing concrete or spray deck surface.  The pavers are generally approximately 1 1/4″ in thickness.  Since the pavers are free floating on a bed of sand, this application is the best choice for an existing surface that has structural, and or stress cracks.

Since landscape pavers come  in many shapes and colors, the landscape design options are endless.  A landscape paver pool deck provides a tremendous face-lift to an existing, often undesireable pool deck!

Arizona Backyard Landscape Paver Pool Deck

 

Is Your Arizona Landscape Design Ready For A Green Spring?

If your unsure on how to successfully transition your Arizona landscape design from winter to spring and eventually the hot summer your not alone!  Now is the time to prepare your yard for the change to warmer seasons.  When the nighttime temperatures are 60 – 70 degrees that’s the signal to get started in your preparations.

TURF TRANSITION

  • Scottsdale Landscape Design

    Scottsdale Landscape Design

    The height of winter turf should be reduced by 1/2 inch every week for the next few weeks to help kill off winter rye and encourage the development of summer Bermuda grass.

  • Growth of Bermuda improves when sunlight is allowed to get through the grass canopy.
  • Once the winter rye is choked out, spread a nitrogen-rich fertilizer to boost the Bermuda root system.

WATERING

  • In the spring, water for just a few minutes in the early morning 3 to 4 days a week.
  • Many homeowners water their turf more than what is needed.  Too much water can result in rotting roots and pest invasions.

PLANTING PREP

  • Prep your soil to make it safe and disease-free prior to planting.
  • Preparations can include soil amendment, vitamin B and other nutrients and/or treatment with fungicides.
Scottsdale Landscape Design

Scottsdale Landscape Design

With some effort now and over the next couple of months, a lush green lawn can be yours by the time summer comes around!

Backyard Kitchen Designs Are An Extension Of Your Home

Beautiful Outdoor Kitchens in Arizona

Beautiful Outdoor Kitchens in Arizona

Along with many others in the landscape architecture and construction industry, we have designed and built many outdoor living spaces which become extensions to the home.  An outdoor kitchen is an extension of the home which is constantly growing in demand and design.  Depending on our client’s vision,  we have designed and built simple outdoor BBQ’s to complete backyard kitchens which include refrigerators, prepping stations, and bar/seating areas.  Our landscape architecture and design team strive for each client to have their backyard be a place of retreat and peace of mind.

Arizona Backyard Kitchen by Dream Retreats

Arizona Backyard Kitchen by Dream Retreats

We are hearing over and over again from our clients that they want to spend more time at home and make their home as nice as possible.  Many of our clients are looking for ways to extend their ability to stay outdoors along with preparing their meals.  Extending patios, outdoor fireplaces or firepits,  water features and putting greens are ways they are accomplishing this. Essentially the backyard becomes a social gathering place for family and friends.

Many industry leaders believe that the continued retreat-to-the-backyard attitude is a result of the national economy over the past number of years.  Homeowners are wanting to reinvest in their home.  Rather than buying a new home, people continue to update their current residence.  The backyard is often the first place homeowners go to a create their Dream Retreat!  We offer FREE design consultations!

Chandler Landscape

Chandler Landscape

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