Caring for ones yard (Tucson: houses, landscaping, transfer to)

[HACESOL]

What does typical yard/home maintenance (for desert landscape/not the green lawn) consist of in Tucson?
For example, where I live in Connecticut, I would say snow shoveling, clean gutters, sweep driveway from tree debris, rake leaves, treat moles if any, treat carpenter ants if any, maintain grass, remove lichen from roof, mow grass. So, I'm wondering what is typical for Tucson (obviously not shoveling 3 feet of snow from my driveway like my husband did last year!) Thanks

[JGMotorsport64]

Atleast at my residence:

Pulling weeds,
Watering Plants
Cleaning Gutters before storms
Sweeping my roof (I have a flat roof)
Trim dead ends off plants
Keep an eye for Termites both Drywood and Subterranean (we have tons)
Treat Prairie Dogs
Spray for Roaches, Spiders, Scorpions and Ants

Its fairly easy actually.

[Bummer]

I "hose" my patio down a couple times each month, HACESOL . . . that's it.

[tom4416]

Yard - call the landscaping company to go do their bi-monthly work ($45) which includes refreshing the stone when necessary as they will wait until enough houses for a full tandem load. They also maintain/turn on the drip system for irrigation as necessary.

Pests - Renew the annual pest maintenance contract - $240 annually

My roof is barrel tile and I do get it inspected every two years by the original roofer to maintain the forty year warranty.

My roll is all this pretty much to enjoy an adult beverage while watching others perform these tasks. Although I do fire up the electric blower every week to dust off the sidewalk to our front door and in front of our house after which I need a nap

I mowed, fertilized, weeded, seeded two acres of lawn, planted and weeded flower beds, shoveled snow, cleaned gutters, ran the neighborhood tractor w/plow to keep our private road open in the winter and never again.

[Jukesgrrl]

I consider my desert landscaping to be just as time consuming as anything I had back East, save for lawn maintenance.

The gravel needs to be raked and refreshed. We grow weeds just as fast as any other part of the country and they are visible immediately in the gravel. I have trees that have to be trimmed at least yearly, sometimes more. The fan palm is huge and in a typical summer I have to take off at least 60 dead palms which have to be removed with a saw. The trees give off a lot of debris and that, combined with gravel that people walking their dogs transfer to the sidewalk, requires me to sweep a couple of times a week. I have a lot of lantana and it has to be pruned multiple times a year. Same with the bushes like Texas ranger and Mexican bird of paradise. I have four large rose bushes that are high maintenance, particularly this year due to my first-ever infestation of thrips. I have a lot of patio pots planted with annuals and herbs and they have to be rotated and watered by hand almost daily in summer. And everything in the yard has to be feed with various concoctions on a schedule, too.

I get a pair of professionals in to do a major pruning at the end of "winter." They stay for several hours, cut with electric pruners, and haul off an entire truck load of debris. They also do the maintenance on my irrigation system which has one issue or another at least once a year. I do the rest myself, but that's uncommon in my neighborhood. Most of the people have regular landscapers who visit every couple of months. I suppose I could save myself a lot of work by getting rid of the flowers, but I enjoy them and to date they seem worth the effort. As for insects and vermin, I have a service that comes four times a year to treat whatever is necessary.

[Jukesgrrl]

Originally Posted by tom4416

... I mowed, fertilized, weeded, seeded two acres of lawn, planted and weeded flower beds, shoveled snow, cleaned gutters, ran the neighborhood tractor w/plow to keep our private road open in the winter and never again.

THAT's the part I do not miss. Winter can be pretty to look at and it used to be nice to snuggle in the house on a day with bad snow. But on a day-to-day basis, the bad out-weighed the good. Worrying about pipes freezing. Worrying about getting the giant icicles off the gutters. Having to shovel the sidewalks sometimes multiple times a day and put down stuff so the thaw-freeze-thaw cycle wouldn't kill a pedestrian or the mailman on my property.

I always lived in cities back East and only one time in my life did I ever have a garage. All the other years I parked on city streets — finding a space sometimes far from my house, shoveling it out to get the car in, having to leave for work even earlier than usual in the morning so there was time to clean snow off the car and scrape ice off the windshields. Then coming home the next day to find another car in the spot I had cleaned. Knowing that I had the brains to drive safely on icy roads but worrying about all the other nuts on the highway.

I know ... I know ... it's a first-world problem. I'm lucky I had a home and a car. But now I have a home and a car and I don't have to do that stuff. I watch the weather on TV in Chicago and think about my brother who lives close to the lake. Meanwhile, I don't even have to spend a minute of my time asking myself as I walk out the door, do I need boots? should I have brought warmer gloves? do I have my umbrella? should I leave extra time for worse-than-usual traffic? As minor as that sounds, it's the best thing about living in Arizona.

[MrsBreeder]

We have a house and nice sized yard.

Instead of planting grass, we had to shovel tons (literally) of rocks.
Pulling weeds. Killing weeds.
Dealing with massive yellow blooms off our mesquite tree, which just COVER the yard in spring. Picking up pods from mesquite. Dealing with major leaf drop in January from that %#!@ mesquite.
Cutting back all the dead plants in the fall.
Buying new tree when monsoon winds knocked the old one down. Crying because our yard no longer has shade.
Constantly fiddling with our drip irrigation system.

Sweeping all those rocks BACK into the yard after kids/dogs/neighbors knock them elsewhere.

But...hey! No grass to mow!