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This past year was primarily focused on ongoing maintenance and catching up on tree trimming. We have one of the larger budgets because so much is covered in it (regular maintenance, landscape refreshes, irrigation repairs, packrat suppression, pre-emergent spraying, etc.). Overall we were slightly under budget.
We have a large number of trees and many of them were in dire need of thinning and cleaning. Without a serious haircut many of these trees were close to succumbing to death by mistletoe. You might recall that the article from last year which shared that trees are a valuable asset and our trees were assessed at an asset value of several hundred thousand dollars. The 2017 budget allocated more to tree trimming and less to some other areas to allow us to trim more. We used a combination of vendors with varying price points and managed to clean and trim 64 trees. We utilized the higher cost vendors at our key focal points (entrances) but used lower cost vendors at the trees located away from the entrance. While we aren’t done yet, we’ve made a serious dent in the problem.
We also did 2 small refresh projects. The narrow strip across from the north pool was replanted and new granite was applied. We relocated a young 4′ saguaro which had been growing next to a column and under the edge of the ramada at the north pool and moved this to our refreshed area. Had the saguaro gotten much bigger it would have been difficult to move and its location guaranteed problems in the future so this was a win-win move. We also did a granite refresh at the center Via Sempreverde parking area and repaired the swales which were causing drainage problems in that area.
Packrat suppression continued in 2017. We had decreased our budget for packrat suppression and unfortunately we exceeded our budget. However knowing we were not on track to hit our budget target, we under spent in the landscape refresh area so we still hit our budget across all areas for the year. While there are opposing views on packrat control, (should we or should we not spend money on it), this year it cost each homeowner 41$ a year for the control or $3.43 a month. We are continuing to look at ways to reduce spending on packrats and for 2018 this will involve removing some cactus in areas that are ongoing problems, especially those that are not healthy, and lifting more cactus so they aren’t as likely to be attractive homes. We will also continue to reduce the areas that we remove packrats from. Packrats do come with the desert and are an important piece of the food chain. We can’t eradicate them but we can continue to make some of our maintained areas less friendly.
We also experimented with plant reuse. We identified a number of plants (euphorbia, lady slippers, aloe, etc) at the north pool and around the HOA that were used to replace dead plants. We also used some to replace problem prickly pear that was removed. While it was an interesting experiment, we probably won’t use this strategy much because it ends up being pretty labor intensive relative to simply buying the small replacement plants at a nursery. However when we stumble across something like the saguaro mentioned above, we will definitely reuse as that was an excellent specimen that would have been costly to purchase and it looks great in its new home.
We notified homeowners twice during 2017 of problems with weedy yards (March and September). All yards eventually became compliant. Please do your part to keep your yard weed free. Typically yards become quite weedy in August due to the summer rains. You should plan to have your yard tended to in August and September to avoid the courtesy notes and formal violation notes. If we have winter rains, the same problem occurs in the February and March time frame. Note that removing weeds isn’t the only requirement. A well maintained yard also has adequate granite covering, and vegetation (including trees) is neat. Dead vegetation should be removed and if things are overgrown consider replanting. These things are all spelled out in our Yard Rules and Regulations. Fines were changed this year for problem yards. It can be up to $250 and/or $10 a day if the problem is not cleaned up in a timely manner.
Finally we have a number of volunteer water watchers who have taken ownership of a particular irrigated area and are watching for problems (leaks or dead plants due to problem with watering). Join me in thanking Lois Coan, Ardith Grady, Cathy Grant, Cynthia Schneider, and Toz Spalding. I appreciate your eagle eyes! In addition to our water watchers many of our other residents have been quick to notice a problem and report it. Please keep up the good work as the faster we address these problems, the less it will impact our water bills. Some of our water watchers are not here in the summer so if you are here year round and can help in the summer, let me know!