r/AZlandscaping

Grass was a uniform green at the beginning of the year. Now we have patches of dead grass all around and I have no clue how to fix this. First time maintaining my own lawn.

House is in metro PHX. Lawn was newly installed at the end of 2025 right before we bought the house in February. Sprinkler set up runs at 4 AM and 5 AM in two zones running at 15 minutes each time every day. I mow usually every 1-2 weeks.

We have occasional mushrooms sprout so the soil should be damp enough, right? Please tell me what I need to be doing, I’m going crazy trying to maintain this thing!

I am renting and this rosemary was already turning when we first came here and now its been like this for about 6 months, what can i do about it

I have a Bauhinia Variegata (Orchid Tree) that just looks like it is dying. It was beautiful in winter with tons of continuous blooms. Now it looks like it is balding from the top down and the leaves are yellowing and falling off. I do not know if I am overwatering it or underwatering it.

The irrigation timer is broken, so I am watering manually every 4 or 5 days. What i do every 4 or 5 days is put the hose on a shower setting and angle it so that it sprays gently around continuously on a single swath under the drip edge of the tree for 30 minutes. I then move the hose so that it is angled on a different swath of the drip edge and spray continuously again for 30 minutes. At the end of that round of spraying, I move the hose one last time and repeat the cycle for a total of 1.5 hours of spraying around the entire base of the tree every 4 or 5 days.

Am I overwatering? Should I mix in fertilizer into the spray? Please help me. My wife will kill me if I kill this tree.

(Please try to reply thoughtfully, as I'm honestly a bit overwhelmed with all of the different perspectives on this I'm getting from neighbors, the nursery, and other YouTube videos. Thank you for your help)

Before: For the past 6 years, I have been simply keeping my 'figure 8 shaped' patch of grass alive while controlling weeds and grass that tends to grow outside of the perimeter (I know it looks like shit, trying my best lol.)

Current: This week, I finally decided to turn my backyard into a more lush, colorful yard and paid a landscaper to dig and place irrigation in 15 different locations. He planted a bunch of native, drought resistant plants since this wall is north facing (orange jubilee, hopseed, blackfoot daisy, rosemary, crossvine, some tropical hibiscus, and some other vines like snail vine and south african jasmine.

Goal: (chatgpt render) Tomorrow, he is adding light colored decoragive aggregate (1/2" screened, ;express gold;) in the dirt areas, and bark/mulch in the flowerbeds. But, as per my initial request to him, is planning to put weed liner down first, to help with weed growth and grass growing outside the perimeter.

Question: after doing lots of research, it sounds like weed liner is not worth the headache, since it hurts the drainage, hurts the soil, and keeps the ground hotter than necessary, putting all my new plants at risk especially as we have the summer heat approaching. While I would love to avoid extra weed pulling, am I making a mistake by having him install liner? Also, while I love the look of the white/tan gravel, will this also be hurting my plants' survival? I intentionally got full-sun plants and like the mulch flowerbed / gravel ground contrast and would ideally like to keep the gravel.

EDIT: very much starting to like the idea of ditching the gravel and putting some light colored native mulch down...

Also in general, I'm a total noob when it comes to caring for shrubs and whatnot and other than my grass, this is the first time I've ever had irrigation. My landscaper has the timer set to 10 minutes at 6am and 7pm every day, but from my research, while that might be good for the first few weeks of new plants' life, that will be too much and too frequent and can cause root rot / not allowing deep enough penetration for the plants over time. Since he doesn't speak english, I'm having a hard time communicating with him, so would love your guys' experience of how I can keep these babies alive now that summer is rapid approaching. Might have planted too late but whatever. Shade cloth?!

Hopefully I’m in the right place for this. I’m from Oregon and things go a little differently out here than I’m used to. I feel like it’s a little more challenging to find dirt and rock solutions or maybe I’m just not looking in the right places.

How would I build a dirt hill that won’t wash away during the first monsoon? Surely, it’s much more than topsoil with some gravel on top right?

Any help is appreciated!

When I bought a couple of Euphorbia tirucalli (pencil tree) for my front entrance, I was not aware they grew so tall. The tag in the pot was missing the “pencil tree” part 😂
Anybody else have these growing like wild? The one on left is at least 15 ft tall.

BEHOLD! Hope the silly picture story entertains

We want to get rid of this gravel around the pool. Any idea on how we might go about this? (Once the weeds are pulled and the landscape plastic is removed.)

Edit to say that:
(1) I have the proper tools minus a wheelbarrow (anybody have a spare two-wheeled on they want to sell for cheap?).
(2) I understand the labor and time involved and am prepared for it, as I am able. I can physically do it.
(3) I'm not interested in throwing the gravel away as I see it as something that a LOT of resources went into creating and I would rather see it reused than tossed. I plan on rinsing it of the years of fine dust that has settled on it over the years.
(4) I'm wondering if any landscaping company or individual would want it after its been raked into piles and rinsed. It's accessible via the alley.
(5) As an aside, I'm planning on filling the space with (mostly) native flowing plants plus a few palms and maybe a yellow bells tree. I would love to install iron trellises onto the wall for vining plants. It will take a long time.
(6) I'm also very committed to getting rid of the hideous and confining iron security fence around the pool, ensuring alternative security measures are in place.
(8) Note that the weeds were largely manually removed a few months ago when it was still mostly cool out and (apart from the Bermuda grass, which is a different story entirely), have not come back. No chemicals used. Same goes with our front yard.

Arizonans give red push pistache a lot of love, and rightly so. Its just about the perfect tree! I'm attempting to air layer mine with the hopes of adding another dependable tree to the stable. This was started in early March, just as new growth began. I projected that I'd be able to separate it in June, based on my other results with air layering lemon tree, but this is going slow. Only three small roots. Hopefully I can get it to the finish line.

Same drip line and emitters, same sun, etc.One blooms and has healthy leaves, the other has no blooms and curled up leaves. The nursery said caterpillars, which I raised an eyebrow at but bought the spray and used it anyway. No change.

I’m redoing my small lawn but first I need to tackle the bootycheeks border that is ancient. It is mostly pretty flush with the tiny gravel and the grass area. The tiny rock sucks because it gets into the grass area so easy when leaf blowing or pushing the lawnmower over etc. There’s too much of this rock around the rest of the yard to dig it out and replace it.

Any ideas on how to revamp this border? Maybe I could raise the border and the level of the lawn by 2 inches or so. Is there a better border product out there that won’t break the bank? I’m not in love with the brick border. What would you do, and no I’m not deleting the grass area

Two trees that were planted at the same time 1 and a 1/2 to 2 years ago. They are in the front yard facing East. They are being watered once a week, at night, every Sunday or Saturday, with a shower nozzle for about 5 minutes each, waving the wand around the mulch. Focusing around the drip line. My mom thinks they are being watered too much and should only be watered about once a month.

I'm sorry it's not the best picture, if it's not good enough I can try to get more. This tree is down the street from us, and I love it so much! I've tried searching and doing image searches and I'm not finding anything I feel confident matches. This tree is in Phoenix, and is probably as tall as their two story house. I have a half acre and I'd love to plant two or three of these, even if they're slow growing and I never get to fully enjoy them.

Hey guys,

Ive had this citrus for almost a year now and its been looking curled like this for most of the time. I have been deep watering slowly for a few hours every week as its a baby tree and have been fertilizing every few months with a slow fertilizer.

I even raised the tree a bit so the top roots aren't getting buried. I spoke to a nursery and they said that its because of the erratic weather changes we've had recently and the tree will be fine. They also mentioned the rule of the tree where the first year they sleep, second year they creep and then they leap

Just wanted to post it on here incase you guys have any recommendations for this.

Thank you for your time!!