Spring’s arrival marks the perfect time to get outside, enjoy the sunshine and spruce up your pool landscaping. We asked our Arizona pool landscaping experts for some tips on what you can do to add new life to backyard staycations.
- Plant a Summer Garden
Plant a garden full of delicious fresh herbs and produce that will be ready for summer snacking. However, it’s not the right season for just any plant. The best ones to plant include:
- Herbs: basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, dill
- Peppers
- Asparagus beans (aka snake beans)
- Sweet potatoes – thought they won’t be ready until fall, you’ll want to plant them now
- Okra
- Tomatoes – plant before May for best results
- Melons
- Armenia cucumbers
This article has some good tips on evaluating sunlight, shade, soil, timing and spacing for your garden.
- Fertilize Your Plants
“Pump up” your landscape plants now in anticipation of their summer growth. A good balanced fertilizer (such as a 12-12-12) is your best bet for just about all of your pool landscaping plants, except for fruit-producing trees. For those, wait until after the fruit has set to feed.
- Give It a Trim
A good trim is actually very healthy for flowering plants, helping to promote a lovely “spring flush” of growth for your Arizona pool landscape. Give an especially hard cutback to your lantana, Mexican bird of paradise and bougainvillea to help them flourish and create a lush, beautiful setting for poolside staycations.
- Irrigation Adjustments
With summer heat on its way, you’ll need to adjust your irrigation to accommodate the moisture need of your landscape while ensuring wise water usage. This video provides easy instructions for how to program your irrigation click. And here’s a useful guide for landscape watering in Arizona.
- Enhance with New Plants
If you’ve been thinking about new landscaping around your Arizona pool, there’s no time like the present! You’ll want to focus on drought-hardy plants that will continue to thrive even during the middle of summer. For optimum look, hardiness and splash of color, these are some of our favorite pool landscaping plants for Arizona backyards:
- All lantana varieties
- Mexican bird of paradise
- Bougainvillea
- Coral fountain
- Any type of cactus
BONUS TIP: Involve the Whole Family!
In Arizona, enjoying the great outdoors is one of the reasons we love living here. And since the whole family gets to enjoy the pool and backyard, it can be fun to turn spring gardening and landscaping into a family activity. Have kids help pick which flowers to plant or which herbs and veggies to grow, and have them help harvest the produce when summer comes. They can even have ownership of a particular plant. And when you’re done with work, it’s time to jump in the pool and play!
If you have questions while you update your landscaping this spring, Shasta Pools is always here to help. Reach out to us anytime for suggestions, tips and recommendations for your Arizona pool landscaping.
