Building Continues 2

Shingles

Cold Storage

  Since my last update on construction a lot has happened. The roof has been shingled and the front porch poured. All of the rough electrical, plumbing, and gas as well as the tubs are in so they did the four way inspection was one week ago. After that was out of the way put in the insulation and dry walled the upstairs. We now have real walls and the house is taking on its true dimensions. It is now down to installing all of the individual things that will give it it's unique character.

Basement

Kitchen

From Front Door

Great Room

Great Room

Colored Faux Stone

Exterior as it is now.

Plant Picks 2

    This week for my Plant Picks I have chosen Gaillardia (Blanket Flower) and Rugosa Rose. These two plants are on the Utah Water Wise list and easy to find at most nurseries and home improvement stores. They flourish in our climate, providing color and interesting texture to a landscape.

     Gaillardia (Blanket Flower) is a perennial with a daisy like head that comes in bright shades of pink, yellow, red, and orange. They are drought tolerant needing to be watered only once a month after established. They get 8"-12" tall and wide and are zones 2-10. They bloom from later spring to frost if deadheaded. They make a colorful addition to a water wise landscape. http://www.waterwiseplants.utah.gov/default.asp?p=PlantInfo&Plant=167&Cart=

   Rugosa Rose is a flowering shrub that is covered with simple formed flowers and comes white, pink, red, and lavender.  They get 4'-8' tall and 4'-6' wide and are zones 3-8. This shrub provides color and textural interest throughout the growing season with flowers from spring to fall, tomato colored hips in the fall and verdant green textured leaves. It is drought tolerant and only needs to be watered once a month after established. I will be planting the white variety of these roses with Lilac and Mock Orange in the flowering shrub hedge that will follow the East and West fence lines.  They will make a great addition to a water wise landscape. http://www.waterwiseplants.utah.gov/default.asp?p=PlantInfo&Plant=328&Cart=

Building Continues

   Since my last post on the construction of my parents house a week ago much of the skeleton of the house has gone up. I left off with the house ready for framing. First, they framed all of the wall including those in the basement. Then, they put up all of the trusses. And finally, they have finished the skeleton by covering the exterior walls. As you can see from the pictures below it is really starting to look like a house.


 We have walls going up!

Kitchen Window

 Picture showing the great views outside some of the windows. Panoramic views of the mountains.

Front Bedroom

Sliding Glass Doors Dining Room

The supports holding up the walls till the trusses are all up and everything is tied together.

The roof is going up.











 Next, they will start on shingling the roof.

Plant Picks

  As I pick the plants that I will be using for this landscaping project I will feature them in this blog, providing pictures and information about the plants. In today's pick I am featuring Lilacs and Mock Orange shrubs. I am going to plant them with other flowering shrubs to make a hedge line along the side fence lines. I choose them for several reasons: drought tolerant, fragrance, bloom time, and aesthetics.

  Lilacs are a well known flowering shrub that has a distinctive fragrance. Most people know what a lilac smells like. They are grown throughout most of the U.S. and bloom in the spring. Most bloom in May for about two to three weeks through there are some like Charles Joly that bloom in June. There many different varieties with different colors and shaped blooms.

Common

Primrose

Charles Joly

    Lilacs are so widely grown because they are pest resistant, easy to grow, and are go to zone 3. They are also surprisingly water wise. Those that are known as french or common lilacs (Syringa vulgaris) only need to be watered once a month according to http://www.waterwiseplants.utah.gov/default.asp?p=PlantInfo&Plant=100&Cart= . These thing combined with their wonderful fragrance make them very desirable shrubs for the home landscape and excellent choices for xeriscaping in Utah. Be warned they are not small shrubs they get anywhere from 8' to 15' tall.

      

Snow White Fantasy

 Mock Orange is another variety of shrub with a strong, pleasant fragrance but not as well know as the Lilac. They bloom in June (now) covering the whole plant in flowers. They come in different varieties with different sized flowers. One variety, the Snow White Fantasy is supposed to bloom twice: May-June and August. The most fragrant of the Mock Orange is called: Innocence. These shrubs are drought tolerant, pest resistant, and smell wonderful. They get depending on the variety anywhere from 3' to 20' tall.  They have the same water requirements as Lilacs, needing to be watered around once a month.   

Innocence  

Why Xeriscape

  You may wonder why I am xeriscaping my parents yard. Its not just to save money on their water bill. The most important reason has to do with the fact that Utah is a desert; water is a very important resource here. Most of Utah's population lives along the Wasatch Front which is very green and vibrant looking for a desert. The Wasatch Front gets anywhere from 10 to 30 inches of water in a year http://www.water.utah.gov/brochures/uws_broc.htm . Utah's average precipitation is 13 inches a year making us the state with the second lowest precipitation level.

   Anyone that has lived in Utah for any amount of time will probably have noticed that water is an important issue here. The local weather report is a key example of this as we have the reports during the winter on the snow pack and during the rest of the year on how our water use is progressing. The "slow the flow" commercials and water wise websites are geared to educate and make the local populous a ware of water issues.
  
   Our water keeps getting spread thinner and thinner because of population growth requiring restrictions. Last year after a lower than average snow pack and spring rainfall both Lehi http://www.ksl.com/?sid=25664781&nid=148 and American Fork http://www.ksl.com/?sid=25679863 had severe water restrictions. Both of these areas have had population explosions over the last decade combine that with a low water year and you have problems. This is just a sample of what is to come with Utah's population projected to grow by over 1 million by 2030; over 50% of the population lives in Salt Lake and Utah counties http://le.utah.gov/lrgc/briefings/PopulationBriefing2014.pdf  (p.5). With this projected growth where is the water going to come from? Recently we were asked by the state on a survey about important political issues what we think should be done to help meet present and future water demands.
    
    Most of my mother's family is local (Mormon pioneers) so water usage and availability is a big issue. I hear about it regularly. My uncle lives in Lake Shore (west of Spanish Fork) so I hear about the wells that run dry and all of the issues that the farmers are having because of the golf course and development upstream. I also see the people that never get in trouble for watering at the wrong time during restrictions and wonder how are we going to have the water for everyone. This has led me to take a proactive approach to this issue and landscape a water wise yard.
  
  

Building Begins

Lot

   Although the main focus of this blog is xeriscaping, I will also be posting pics updating the progress of the house as I believe that it is an important and interesting part of this adventure. The first pic shows the building lot with all the weeds. You will notice that it is a small lot. My parents are approaching 60 and want to have both a smaller footprint and less yard work.

The 'Hole'

This pic shows what my mother has dubbed the 'Hole'. It encompassed almost the entire lot as they have to dig beyond the foundation measurements in order to setup the forms. There is a little island of dirt in the middle of the hole. It's the bit covered in green. It is where they poured the garage floor.

In 'Hole'

This is the view from in side the 'Hole'.  My mother climbed down inside to take a look see.

Foundation

This is the most up to date pic taken today. The foundation is up, basement floor and garage floor are in. Next they'll start framing.







 After seeing the foundation in I have a much better idea of how to lay everything out. I am getting an idea of how the shadows fall and the amount of light the different areas around the yard will get. Once the exterior is up I will  have to go up to the lot at several different times of the day to find out how much and when the sun shines on each area because our neighbors to the West has a two story house that blocks most of the sun during the evening. This will be an important factor in plant placement because different plants require different amounts of sun light. In some cases placing a plant that is normally in full sun in a part sun area will make it more drought tolerant. In other cases a plant will not have this flexibility.