Recently I downsized from a large house. The search for a two-bedroom house in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains, in Tucson, Arizona, offered few choices. With three weeks to go before  handing over my previous home I settled on the smallest and ugliest house on the list. Unloved, lacking in any exterior charm whatsoever, the house had the elements that I was looking for. Namely: small; spectacular views of the mountains; a neighborhood where dog and I could walk in the desert, and a rarity in these parts, a twenty minute walk to a grocery store, several restaurants and coffee shops. Furthermore, improvements are scheduled for the main artery road to include sidewalks, bike path and noise reduction road surfacing.
The house is brick construction, circa 1983 and a structural inspection pronounced it “sound”. Built into a hillside with garage below, the steps leading up the front door enforce daily cardio.
Living in the desert affords a blissful climate for eight months out of the year and blast furnace heat June through September. Anything you do to limit direct affect of the Sun’s heat is a bonus. This house has a south facing wall of French doors…a conduit for the sun …opening onto a back yard area that housed a shabby, plaster coated pool, and enough concrete on which to drill (even grill) a regiment. Not a blade of grass or leaf marred its jarring horribleness!
My first task was to create shade. I did my homework and located a company that made aluminium trellises. One product, touted to look like aged redwood, exceeded expectations. We covered the entire back yard (excluding the pool) with a trellis, 14 ft. high and affording 60 percent shade pattern. I did research on using recycled aluminium but it was not available. Deep awnings now shade the remaining windows on the south side of the house. The pool was resurfaced with a black “Pebbletec’ to retain heat. The aging pool heater and chlorine filtering system went to the dump and I put in a salt filtering system. The concrete surface was coated with a spray-on product “Kooldeck” in terra cotta and softened the look of concrete. Next came pots and vines. On the east side I put in mature wisteria, which have already reached trellis height and are forming a green wall. To climb the columns I chose an orange trumpet vine and a jasmine…both frost hardy and evergreen. The result is a sala fresca, an outdoor room that is cool, inviting and shady. By this time next year, the vines and wisteria will cover the entire “roof” area. The direct sun into the great room has been eliminated and despite recent 100F plus temperatures, the interior house temperature has not risen above 84F. Compare that to the October morning when I first saw the house and the thermostat showed an interior temperature of 97F.
South aspect prior to shade trellis
South aspect 4 months after planting and shade trellis installed
The front of the house beautification involved carving out a portion of the hillside. The dirt was carted round back to form a “mesa” behind the pool wall on which I planted native Mesquite and Palo Verde trees. A small area was walled in for a front garden; the Irish in me surfaced and I do have a bed sheet sized lawn. I have planted grape vines and a fig tree, creating green surfaces on exposed walls to offset bricks retaining heat from the sun. A tiny side yard off my study has become a vegetable garden and with the help of a large shade umbrella, tomatoes, onions, herbs and other vegetables are thriving and my study is a cool, pleasant spot. Along the perimeter of the property I have planted citrus trees.
Now I can hear the voices : “what about water…she’s created an oasis”. Everything is on a drip system that is carefully monitored to give exactly the amount of water needed. My exterior trees make use of grey water from the washing machine and creating catchment wells around their trunks prevents run-off. Native trees are not watered; I have built dry river beds to carry monsoon rain run off into basins; plantings outside the walls on the west side are the beneficiaries of pool back flow. Plans are in place to monitor rain run-off this coming monsoon season and, based on that pattern, to install a water -harvesting holding tank in the obsolete underground septic tank.
Example of a "dry river" bed for capturing rain run off
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