Well, I didn’t get to go to Moon Valley this past weekend because it was way too hot for baby Katherine to be hanging out in. The forecast for the weekend predicts cloudy 101 degree weather, but I hope the clouds stay out longer so we will get to talk to John, designer and plant extraordinaire from the Chandler location and answer all our questions.

I’ve been researching and found out that a call to Blue Stake (602)263-1100 is in order. They are a free service that comes over to your property and marks portions of your yard that have electrical, sewer, and/or water lines. This is very important especially when you are digging. Then the design begins in terms of where we want our plants to be located, the selection of desert plants and our drip irrigation layout dependent upon our landscape design. Once we have chosen our plants, Moon Valley will keep our plants in their nursery until the time comes when we are ready for actual planting. I don’t know if other nurseries do that as well, but I was very happy to hear this because of our HOA. We need to get approval from them first which will take 60 days if all goes well and then we will need to dig 6-8″ deep irrigation ditches where our polytubing will be running through the yard before the actual planting. There is so much work to be done. We need to get rid of rocks that might compromise the irrigation line. That is a difficult task as I walk along my property and see rocks everywhere. Our community used to be an orange grove and I can’t see how they could have grown anything with all these rocks.

The beginning is near and the finished product seems so far away. There is so much to do and so little I still don’t know about. By the end of the year, baby Katherine will be 9 months and hopefully be playing in our new back yard and I will gain the knowledge of xeriscaping and the appreciation of desert gardening.