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I need to know how much average would it be to do a professional desert landscaping for a 800 sf backyard.

Wrong question - the question is: how much professional desert landscaping can I get for my 800SF backyard for $____. You say how much you want to spend and you can find out how much you can get for that - because you can spend $300 to $300,000 on the same amount of area and still be professional desert landscaping.
OR - Put up a picture of what you have and see if you can find a picture that resembles what you want, then ask us how much it would take to get from Point A to Point B. The question is not how big the yard is as much as how much you want done to it.

2008-05-21 10:46:39 by jeremy78180

Desert landscape ideas you never thought of.

i have grass all in my backyard,
can i just dig up the grass or do i have to use something special for it?

Lasagna Gardening-No Tilling

From gardener Arden:

Create a new gardening bed without tilling or pulling up grass and weeds:

Once you have a well defined garden bed, no need to clear it of grass or weeds, just layer about 6 or 8 newspaper sheets or cardboard over the bed area, water the paper or cardboard to the soaking point (this method will eventually smother whatever is growing there).

Over this paper or cardboard, you can build up layers of organic materials by using already made compost from your own pile or bought in bags from a nursery, chopped up leaves, grass clippings, chipped up prunings, produce trimmings, aged manure (not dog or cat), whatever you can gather that will rot. Pile it on as thick as you can and be sure it is kept well moistened as if you are watering a garden each week. This is known as lasagna gardening.
Or you can mix everything together and then pile it on top of the paper or cardboard if you prefer.

If you would like to have a top layer, wood chips can often be found at your city's Parks & Recreation Dept., or you can check with your local nurseries. This will make a good top dressing to keep moisture in and to keep wind from blowing away your lasagna.

This material will break down and become a rich, loose loam. Keep adding to this each year and you will have a very nice gardening bed.

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And here is another way from gardener Merrybelle:

Lasagna gardening:

Lasagna gardening is simply a short cut to digging and tilling up an area for new beds. I live on a hillside and part of our now yard used to be pasture land , so not only is the land compacted, it's also clay based with wild Bermuda in a goodly portion of it.

To lasagna, you normally spray the grass with a grass/weed killer (I'll get creamed by the environmentalists on this one).

Then you lay down your cardboard/newspapers.

On top of this you put compost, top soil, potting soil, shredded leaves, etc.

You are now ready to plant your beds.

When using newspapers, they need to be thick, that's why I prefer cardboard. It suppresses the greenery underneath while decomposing, thereby enriching the soil. For some reason, the papers/cardboard draw earthworms like crazy, which is also good for aeration of the soil.

You obviously cannot till in your dirt mixture immediately, that's why most people let the topsoil/compost/potting soil/shredded leaves sit for awhile on top of the cardboard/newspaper layers, to give them time to decompose. This is esp. true if you are going to be digging holes for shrubs, roses, anything that required more than a minimum of root cover.

Being the impatient person that I am, I normally plant immediately on top, but then, I'm planting shallow rooted things like lilies, etc.

All of my beds are lasagna'd - ie, layered.

So in a nutshell, lasagna gardening is layer gardening, a quicker way to create new beds, esp. for us older folks who can't double dig, or who have very poor soil.
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Here are several very good above the ground/raised flower beds links for you:

http://www.eartheasy.com/grow_raised_bed s.htm

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/raisedbed garden.html

http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories /HORT/Feb1601a.htm

2008-03-15 08:32:00 by bangs

I live in southern CA in the desert and had my backyard landscaped, it was nothing but dirt, I had sprinklers, grass and a retaining wall put up with nice landscaping blocks. The yard is 50x 20, and I paid $4300 to have it done, I paid $190,000 for the house and it's 3 bed and 2 bath, around 1342 square feet. How much house value have I added?

The outside of a home is just as important as the inside, I have worked in construction for 15 years and as a female I know what a woman wants, the outside is very important I just Landscaped a home for a lady that is selling her house and it was very important to her to have it looking as good on the outside as the inside, men are the same way, as far as value I'm absolutely sure it has up the price!*

2009-05-03 10:05:16 by Christopher H

Our backyard is real large and completely dirt right now, we live in desert so grass probably not a good idea but is gravel the only option? Any one with any ideas?

Go out and collect some interesting rocks and make a rock garden.

2008-01-17 15:15:11 by gold_miners_daughter

I live in Nevada, and my backyard is unfinished, it's just desert dirt. I'd like to fill it in with rocks, maybe the pinkish red ones, nothing too nice though. How much do these cost ber bag or per pound, and where can I get them myself?

I bought 20# bags for just under $2.40 two years ago for a flower bed and it took about 30 of them for that small space. Your yard could be quite costly at that. I got mine from Home Depot.

You might talk to a local rock hauler and see if they have something similar and cheaper.

2007-02-09 16:51:39 by hellojamie2006