The finished front yard in the evening sun on the day the crew left: a flagstone path to the door, a curved stone seat wall, granite boulders, a young palo verde on stakes, a saguaro, an ocotillo and small agaves, cacti and shrubs in fresh granite

We draw every plant before we dig.

We design and build desert yards in Tucson. Before a shovel goes in, you see the whole plan, with every plant drawn and its water counted.

Book a site visit

It’s free. Your drawn plan and a fixed price come within ten days.

Every plant in that yard has its own plate.

This is the plan we drew for it: 23 plants on drip. Point at a plant or tap it, and its plate comes up. It tells you how big the plant gets, how much water it drinks and how it gets through July.

29,500

gallons of water a year this yard saves against the lawn it replaced

The lawn it replaces. 1,350 sq ft of Bermuda grass needs about 42 inches of water a year here. One inch over one square foot is 0.623 gallons: 1,350 × 42 × 0.623.

35,300 gal

This plan, on drip. 23 plants, each counted at full size. Every plate shows its share.

− 5,800 gal

Saved each year. About five-sixths of the water, and no mowing.

29,500 gal

Example calculation for this concept plan. Bermuda grass is counted at 60% of Tucson’s reference evapotranspiration (about 70 inches a year). The desert plants get 10–20% of it over their full-grown canopy, on drip at 90% efficiency. The first summer takes more while roots establish. We run the same numbers for your yard.

The plant list

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Pl. I24″ box

Parkinsonia ‘Desert Museum’

Desert Museum palo verde

Full size: 20 ft tall, 20 ft wide
Water: About 3,040 gal a year
1 in this plan
In July: Its green bark makes food, so in a dry spell it drops its tiny leaves and keeps growing. It was bred here in Tucson and has no thorns. Every April it goes yellow.

Pl. II5-gal

Agave parryi

Parry’s agave

Full size: 2 ft tall, 3 ft wide
Water: About 35 gal a year
2 in this plan, about 70 gal a year together
In July: It keeps its pores shut through the heat of the day and opens them at night, so it loses very little water. The thick blue-grey leaves hold the rest.

Pl. III5-gal

Leucophyllum frutescens

Texas ranger

Full size: 6 ft tall, 6 ft wide
Water: About 270 gal a year
6 in this plan, about 1,620 gal a year together
In July: Silver hairs on the leaves bounce the sun away. When the humidity climbs before a monsoon storm it covers itself in purple flowers, which is why growers call it the barometer bush.

Pl. IV5-gal

Ferocactus wislizeni

Fishhook barrel cactus

Full size: 2 to 4 ft tall, 1½ ft wide
Water: About 9 gal a year
3 in this plan, about 27 gal a year together
In July: Its pleated ribs swell after a rain and shrink as it uses the water. It grows faster on its shady side, so it leans south. Old-timers call it the compass barrel.

Pl. V1-gal

Encelia farinosa

Brittlebush

Full size: 3 ft tall, 4 ft wide
Water: About 95 gal a year
6 in this plan, about 570 gal a year together
In July: As summer heats up it grows whiter, hairier leaves that reflect the light. In a long drought it drops them and waits for rain. Yellow daisies cover it in March.

Pl. VI5-gal

Dasylirion wheeleri

Desert spoon

Full size: 4 ft tall, 5 ft wide
Water: About 75 gal a year
3 in this plan, about 225 gal a year together
In July: Hundreds of narrow, waxy leaves shade each other and the trunk, and a deep taproot finds water other plants can’t reach. The dry leaf bases are the spoons.

Pl. VII10 canes

Fouquieria splendens

Ocotillo

Full size: 15 ft tall, 10 ft wide
Water: About 240 gal a year
1 in this plan
In July: It drops its leaves within weeks of dry weather and grows a new set within days of rain, several times a year. The green canes stay alive in between.

Pl. VIII6 ft, salvaged

Carnegiea gigantea

Saguaro

Full size: 40 ft, over about 150 years
Water: About 9 gal a year
1 in this plan
In July: Its pleats open like an accordion to store water after a storm, and roots a few inches deep spread as wide as it is tall to catch every drop. Ours come salvaged, with the state permit tag.

Arizona flagstone being fitted on a compacted gravel base, with a rubber mallet, a level and a string line — Top: flagstone going down on a gravel base. Bottom: a granite path the morning it was compacted. Beside each photo, the same material as it’s drawn on the plan.

A new decomposed granite path in rusted steel edging, still showing boot prints, with young agaves on drip rings and a plate compactor and rake beside it — Top: flagstone going down on a gravel base. Bottom: a granite path the morning it was compacted. Beside each photo, the same material as it’s drawn on the plan.

Most of a desert yard is what goes between the plants.

Gravel that drains in a monsoon, stone that doesn’t heave, boulders set deep and a quarter inch of steel holding every edge. Each one has its own mark on the plan.

Decomposed granite

Crushed granite, screened to 3/8″ and laid 2″ deep. It packs firm underfoot and still drains in a storm.

$2.40per sq ft

Arizona flagstone

Laid with tight joints on a compacted base, so a path or a pool deck never rocks underfoot.

$26per sq ft

Boulders

Picked at the yard for colour and lichen, craned in and buried a third deep so they look like they grew there.

$420each, from

Steel edging

A quarter inch of steel between gravel and stone. It rusts to a brown you stop noticing.

$16per ft

Drip irrigation

One emitter per plant, sized to the plant, on a controller that follows the season.

$1,600front yard, from

Low-voltage lighting

Warm 2700K fixtures aimed at trunks and walls, on a sunset timer.

$210per fixture

The front yard in the plan above, all in

With the plants, the seat wall and taking out the lawn.

about $18,000installed

Example prices for this concept site, installed. Your plan comes with a fixed price.

The same front yard in the blue hour with the lights on: path lights on the flagstone, an uplit palo verde, lit boulders, a glow along the seat wall and the porch light

In July you live in the yard after dark.

From May to September it’s too hot to sit out before sundown. So we plan the light with the plants: warm 2700K light on the tree, the path, the wall and the boulders, and none of it glaring into the house. Eight low-voltage lights come on with the sunset.

Uplight on the palo verde1 × 7 W
Path lights4 × 3 W
Light along the seat wall1 × 9 W
Uplights on the boulders2 × 4 W
Porch lightsame timer

From the first walk-through to your first summer.

Example reviews for this concept site.

They drew the whole yard first, so we knew what we were buying. The crew was done in seven days and left the street clean. Our water bill fell by half the first summer.
Dana R., Sam Hughes. Front yard: lawn out, drip and lights.

The test hole hit caliche a foot down, so they set the palo verde where it could root. In June they came back to turn up the drip, like they said they would.
Marcus and Lena T., Catalina Foothills. Backyard patio and lighting.

Week 1
Site visit
We walk the yard with you and dig a test hole to find the caliche, the hardpan that stops roots and water. Free, about an hour.
Week 2
The plan
A drawn plan like the one above, with the water math and a fixed price. Change anything you like and we redraw it.
Weeks 3 to 5
The build
Lawn out, grading and drainage, drip, stone, then plants. Most front yards take six to nine working days.
First summer
The check-ins
We come back in June and again in August to adjust the drip while the roots settle in.

Book a site visit.

An hour in your yard, free. Within ten days you get a drawn plan with a fixed price.

520-555-0133Mon to Fri, 6:30 to 3:30. From June to September we start at 5:30 to beat the heat.

The test hole. Caliche is soil cemented hard with lime, and water can’t drain through it. We find it before we plant anything, then break through it or plant around it.