The Importance of Getting Ourselves Familiar with the Pancake Prickly Pear Cactus
June 16th, 2008 categories: Historic Neighborhoods, Responsible Living
I often see homes for sale, even new or remodeled Phoenix homes that just are missing something, and you don’t know what it is unless you are one who never underestimates the importance of good landscaping.
(Central Phoenix home without landscaping)
It is clear to me, when I show homes and I see what kind of excitement a home with a great landscaping can create or when quite decent homes with not a single thing planted in the front yard (or a dying king palm) creates just an undecided.. ehhmmm. Of course it is easy to see when the emptiness is amor vacui, contemporary, minimalistic landscaping, and when it is simply overlooked.
(Central Phoenix Home With Landscaping)
A few reasons why I would encourage some plants, strategically placed and maintained:
1. We live in the desert- so landscaping improvement can be really easy, affordable and low maintenance, and with right shrubs and trees chosen- our water expense will not increase. Quite contrary- when changing from grass to desert landscaping- this expense will decrease.
2. It adds value. In “101 ways to Massively Increase the Value of your Real Estate without Spending Much Money”, Dolf de Roos writes in the first 10 chapters:
“Mow the lawns, for heaven’s sake! I am always delighted to inspect real estate where the grass comes up to my waist, as I know that I can deduct thousands of dollars off the price, even though the cost of cutting the grass may only be a couple of hundred dollars”
“What I am suggesting is that you pay to have mature trees delivered and ‘installed’ on your property. naturally this will cost a bit more , but if spending $2,000 on trees can increase the value by $10,000, than this is a good trade off”
It also has been noticed: there are more trees in affluent neighborhoods.
If you plan on living in a house for a while you can buy a very young desert tree for about $35.00. In 3 years this tree will be large enough to make a positive financial impact on the value of the home.
3. It will make you feel better. There is a difference between walking to your home between a heated to 170 degrees driveway slab and not much cooler rock front yard embellished with 2 cacti, while spending just few seconds close to a shade giving tree and a quick glimpse at violet or orange blooming shrubs can only relieve stress and put us in a calmer mood.
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