WE HAVE A HOUSE IN THE DESERT

I have been pondering for days what to write about moving to a new house, in a new town with a new garden. For that is exactly what we, in our late 70s, are doing.  Lots of friends are calling us brave. Some say they will never leave the house they have. Did we have a choice? We had talked about it for years and then suddenly on the spur of the moment we called in a realtor. That set the whole thing in motion and before we knew it, with no decisions made about where we were going to go, we were out of the house we had lived in and the garden we had created over a 21 years time period.

                                                                     The sunken garden in Austin

Our original thoughts were to move to the Phoenix area and then driving back from there in April we spent a few days in Tucson. We fell in love with the area, the surrounding mountains and desert scenery, and decided that is where we would look for a new home. A house like this with a garden like this would be my dream house and garden. Of course, this one was not for sale.

       

It has not been easy. Over the last month we have put offers in on 3 houses, pulling out from each of them for various reasons. Surely it would be third time lucky. The house had everything. It had a Southwest exterior, a very modern interior and just enough garden for me. We offered sight unseen although our realtor did a video walk- through. Our offer was accepted and we made plans to attend the inspection. After seeing the property, and hearing some of the things in the inspection report we withdrew our offer. Thank goodness we had gone to the inspection. I suggest this is something everyone do and keep your eyes well open. Most of the times inspections bring up minor things which can easily be fixed but for us there were clear indications of a very poor build with poor contractors and the drainage issues that would have been incredibly costly to resolve. We felt relieved that we had not lost our earnest money.

On the rebound, we went to look at another house we had rejected from photographs because it just didn't have enough garden. My realtor told me that most houses that people buy will tick 7 out of 10 of the things they were looking for. Yes, I was aware that finding a 10 would be difficult having come from a 10 out of 10. I'm not sure where this one was on the scale but I believe it is well below 7. The biggest issues were the small amount of garden surrounding the house which left only a modest amount of gardening opportunity and the house was quite dark by my standards. The owners had had the windows tinted. I dreamed of having a white modern kitchen-this one was modern but darker than I had hoped for. We left for home and over the next few days David mentioned the house several times saying he thought we should buy it. He is not as fussy about the light and garden as I am. He was not happy living in the apartment and wanted to get on with his life. I had to think long and hard about whether I could be happy there. As a part of that I began to convince myself that I was being silly about the amount of gardening. After all my age was against me and we had already decided it was time to make a change in that direction. Desert gardening would not be quite so intensive and there were things I could do, some changes I could make to the plants already there. I have already come to love cactus and succulents and many of my potted plants would welcome being planted in the ground. David ascertained that the window tinting could be removed if we felt it necessary and maybe we would soon realize that we needed it. After all we have no first hand knowledge of the desert except for short summer forays to stay in Phoenix with our son. The good thing about this area is that it is slightly cooler than the desert level as it is at about 3000' That was definitely one of the attractions of the area even though it is subject to some frosts in the winter. We would have plenty of hiking opportunities including the Catalina Mountains and Mount Lemmon which is 9000' On a summer's day the temperature among the pines up there is 30° cooler than the desert floor.

Every house that we had placed an offer on had a view and whereas that had never been something on our list it now became important. To make up for the lack of garden behind our house there was a view with a towering saguaro on one side. We decided to put in an offer which we held firm on and they accepted. David flew out on Sunday and along with our son attended the inspection. All went well and save for a few small repairs the house had a clean bill of health. 

                                                                  The view

 The fence is interesting being made of what looks like corten steel. It is not something I have seen before but is very attractive and doesn't block the view. It continues around the house on three sides and should keep the javelinas out! There may be no deer in the area but there are certainly plenty of desert critters. I know pack rats can be a problem. Will they eat my plants I wonder? I am going to have a whole new garden experience. 

                                                       My first project will be the front elevation

My plan is to completely redo this area at the front of the house, removing the bushes along the side and the large agave. I will need to research the choice of plants I can use in this area, which has a westerly exposure. The last time we bought a resale was in 1981 in California when we ripped out all the paving, making new pathways and removing the snail infested dichondra. This should be a relatively easy job as the hardscape will stay. Because I had no thought in my mind that this would be the house we would buy I paid little attention to other areas of garden I might improve. It will be a complete surprise. We close on the house December 1st and expect to be in there before Christmas. Which reminds me of the Christmas balls we decorated our Austin agave with 2 years ago. When we lost them all I had no idea what I was going to do with them, now I know-at least for a little while!