Landscaping in Arizona presents many unique challenges, but if you are willing to put in some research and a little bit of elbow grease, you can have a beautiful yard year round. One of the biggest challenges to landscaping in Arizona is the fact that there are so many USDA plant hardiness zones within the state.

The USDA plant hardiness zone map is a fantastic tool that every gardener and landscaper should use when planning what plants to place in their yard. The map breaks down the country into zones based on climate. If you are careful to choose plants that have been labeled for your zone, they should not only survive, but also thrive, under the right soil conditions in your yard. When landscaping in Arizona, it is especially important to know exactly which zone you live in. The state contains so many zones that if you don’t pay close attention, it can be easy to purchase plants that won’t do well in your city.

Once you find out exactly what zone your Arizona landscaping project will be in, choose plants that will thrive not only in your town’s climate, but also in your yard’s soil. If your soil isn’t ideal for a particular plant, you can take steps to amend your soil. Do careful research on your plant’s needs and amend your soil accordingly.

It is possible to place a plant in your yard that is meant for a slightly warmer climate. You can plant such a plant in a container or even plant it as an annual and plan to replant it each year. Some people have luck planting warmer condition plants in protected spaces against a house or structure. They take careful pains to protect the plant during the winter and often the plant will survive until the following spring.

One of the best ways to landscape in any climate is to make ample use of native plants. The deserts and highlands of Arizona have a wide array of native plants that are not only interesting specimens to look at, but often have a gorgeous life cycle that changes throughout the season. Native plants will adapt well to the soil in your yard and help to sync your property to the landscape outside your garden walls.

If you are interested in using native plants in your Arizona landscaping, make sure that you purchase your plants through a reputable local nursery. A local nursery will ensure that you have plants that are best adapted for your zone and soil.

Let’s face it, everybody wishes his or her backyard was the garden of an English manor, but few of us have the kind of money to make that a reality. If you are like me, you don’t have the money to spend on landscape designers, especially if you are the type of person who likes to get their house in tip top shape. That money would be better spent on having cabinets replaced, counters resurfaced, or bathrooms redone, not on comparatively simple outdoor work. But don’t worry, you can construct beautiful, elegant landscape designs yourself with relatively little trouble.

Before you buy all kinds of expensive equipment to landscape your yard, it’s important to take a good long think and plan out some landscape designs. Sure, we all like toys, and we’d all like to run out to home depot and get a truckload of new shiny tools, but you might find that, once you get to actually implementing your landscape design, you have a bunch of tools you don’t need and are missing the ones that you do.

For a week before I do any yard work, I like to carry around a notebook with me where I can sketch my landscape designs. Sometimes it is nice to make a sheet with a rough layout of your yard, including house and other permanent structures, and trees you are planning on keeping, and then run off several copies of it for sketching landscape designs on. I have a friend who designs landscapes for a living, and he swears that it can’t be done unless you are willing to spend hours just sitting in the yard, seeing what the land tells you.

At some point, you will have to decide how ambitious you want your landscape designs to be. Are you just up for planting trees and flowers? How about a fountain, or a brick path? A stone patio? Landscape designs come in different degrees of complexity. Probably, for the first one, you should just find one area of your yard that needs work and concentrate on landscape designs for that part. Maybe redesign your garden, or plant some new hedges to block off your back yard. Bite off too much, and your landscape designs are bound to be a failure, but start slowly and you’ll be an old hand in no time. It won’t be long until you will have the most beautiful home on the block.

When designing your own landscaping, you may not have a lot of money to spend on 3-D computer software for designing your exterior landscape. Some companies offer free landscaping software that will help you choose the plants as well as their colors and sizes to optimize your outdoor living space. Most software include different types of plants, including annuals and perennials and allow the user to alter the size and the wiew of the display for a more accurate rendering of how the project will look when completed.

One of the drawbacks of using free landscaping software is it may not allow the user to change the style of the house or the layout of the flowerbeds. With many of programs, there is one main house design surrounded by beds. If the home design is not the same as your’s then the free landscaping software can be still be used for choosing the sizes and colors of flowers and how they will blend together.

Some of the free landscaping software available online is offered by companies selling flowers and flower seeds. Their suggestions usually center around the products they sell, however, with some basic landscaping software costing close to $100, this can be an inexpensive trade off to the benefits of the software. While the suggestions are made, there is no reason why you can’t purchase the plants at a local nursery.

The Limitations of Free Landscaping Software

Complete landscaping software will usually include options for adding landscaping stones or lumber while most free landscaping software lack this option. Depending on the company from which you receive your free software many options may be included or eliminated. Many times do-it-yourself landscape companies will offer free landscaping software for potential customers that contain more features than the software given away by garden companies.

One of the good things about many of the free landscaping software offers made on the Internet is that they do not require registration, are quick to download and, once you find out they really will not offer any help, can easily be deleted from your system. It may take a few minutes for the entire process, but you will not cost you any money.

In most cases, free landscaping software will be fairly easy to use as well as being self-explanatory. Seldom will there be any help available except what is included with the software. However, this software can provide some information about choosing plants for individual climates. As with just about anything given away for free, you can expect basic options to be included, but remember – you also get what you pay for.