Take Back Control of Your Surroundings

The best part about owning a house is that it’s yours, and you can make changes, add new things, and re-invent it to be your perfect home. In part 1 of “Tackle Your Landscaping Issues,” we focused on trees and plant suggestions for adding privacy and creating landscape designs for your new home. This time we are focusing more on blocking out noise and unsightly views in your front and back yards. While this can be a new homeowner issue, it also applies to older homeowners!

As a new homeowner, you may not have noticed just how close your home was from a local park or school or that your street has more traffic than you expected. For older homeowners, you may be dealing with similar problems that have escalated over the years and you need help blocking noise and views.

To reduce noise around your home and block out unsightly areas, we have a wide selection of trees and shrubs that can get the job done. We can even help you design your beautiful landscape upgrade! Keep reading for some of our favorite trees and plants to help you with your landscape goals.

Trees and Plants for Blocking Noise

Maybe you didn’t realize your home was located so closely to noisy areas such as parks, schools, busy streets, or loud neighbors, or perhaps these issues have slowly increased over time.

Whatever the problem is, a well-organized design can help reduce noise around your home and let you feel more at home than before! Planting trees and large shrubs in a hedge-like order or designing a living wall, to construct a solid barrier will be most useful for noise reduction.

Ficus Columns

Our improved Ficus Nitida Columns are perfect for creating a dense barrier to block out anything you want! They love the heat and get more drought-tolerant as their roots establish. They grow quickly and are easy to take care of throughout each season.

Podocarpus

Podocarpus is a low-maintenance tree that is most often used in landscapes as a screen. This fast-growing tree can handle regular trimmings to fit your exact design needs or neighborhood restrictions.

When left alone, they can grow large and create a dense structure of branches and foliage to help block out noise and increase privacy.

Trees and Plants for Blocking Unsightly Areas

Another landscape issue we hear about in our nurseries is that our customers have an unsightly spot in their yard or their neighbors’ yard that they want to cover up. Some issues that you might run into are noisy pool pumps and A/C units, or bland block fence.

As important as they are to your home, you don’t need to see them every day, and there are many ways to block them from sight with attractive plants from palms to shrubs. 

Pygmy Date Palm

The Pygmy Date Palm is a small palm that can fit in tight spaces and bring a unique look to your yard. This palm can be grown in single and multi-trunk form. The Pygmy can grow in full sun to partial shade and require little maintenance.

Hopseed

The Hopseed is a sun-loving shrub that can fit easily into any landscape as a filler plant to make sure your pool pump is well disguised! Hopseed can grow as tall as eight to ten feet and block out quite a bit of unsightly space!

Our Green Hopseed variety will add bright green foliage to your landscape while our Purple Hopseed variety adds a pop of purple that will contrast beautifully with your other plant material.

Ask a Nursery Professional

Now is a great time to plant! Stop by Moon Valley Nurseries and speak with a nursery pro about where to get started with your new landscape project. We can help you pick out the perfect plants for your specific situation and design the best set-up for your yard.

More from Moon Valley Nurseries

Click here for PART 1 of “Tackle Your Landscape Issues [New Homes and Needed Privacy].”

Click here to learn more about our consultation process. See how easy we make it for our customers to get the job done right and get it done fast.

Click here to find out what to expect when you visit Moon Valley Nurseries.

Visit Moon Valley Nurseries Near You

Click here to find your nearest nursery and check out these and other gorgeous plant material options in person. Our nursery professionals are ready to help you find the best plants for your home and landscape today.

Benefits of Planting Evergreen Trees in Your Front Yard

• Add instant curb appeal to your home and neighborhood.
• Blocks viewpoints from neighbors or street traffic and unwanted views.
• Increase the value of your home tremendously.
• Creates a natural sound barrier – ideal for properties near busy streets.
• Enhances the architectural design of your landscape.
• Adds shade to your yard and can help cool down your home during the summer.

You can sense it when it feels like you’re on display in your personal outdoor space. It’s a feeling that can make it a little harder to relax and enjoy your front yard. With the right evergreens, you can create a personal fortress that feels peaceful, and most of all, private.

Planting for privacy is a breeze with evergreen trees. Using trees to create privacy in your front yard means that you get to add color, texture, form, or anything else you can envision! We carry a wide selection of evergreens that can create any aesthetic for your landscape design and provide you and your family with plenty of peaceful solitude.

Yes, you could install an expensive fence or build a wall made from brick, stone, or some other solid material. The thing is, those tall fences and walls can make us feel confined in our space. Not to mention that there could be local laws or HOA restrictions based on height, placement, and style. Over time, those fences start to show wear and tear that can be expensive to fix or replace.

Five Best Evergreens for Arizona Yards

Evergreen trees hold onto their leaves all year long, so their foliage can add wall-to-wall privacy year-round. As they mature, evergreens create a consistent look that makes them an ideal privacy screen.

They do much more than just create a private yard. Evergreen trees also help absorb ambient noise. Privacy never looked so good! Here are five evergreen trees for front yards in Arizona – all available at your nearest Moon Valley Nurseries location.

Ficus Indian Laurel

The Ficus Indian Laurel, also known as Ficus Nitida, is a medium-to-large tree that grows in single and multi-trunk form and thrives in full sun. The Ficus produces a wide-spreading and dense canopy that creates a beautiful privacy screen around your yard.

Ficus trees handle pruning into many shapes, so you can trim the foliage any way you need to fit perfectly into your landscape. To give you the most privacy, we suggest planting these fast-growing trees in rows along the borders of your front yard.

Live Oak

Live Oak, sometimes known as Southern Live Oak, is another of our beautiful evergreen trees to consider for privacy. These are long-lived trees that grow at a moderate rate. The produce dense, gray/green foliage that will block unwanted views, especially from larger homes nearby.

Besides creating privacy, these evergreens feature a wide-spreading canopy that will provide lots of shade for your yard and home. Live Oak trees are also noted for being very drought-tolerant once established, and for the minimal care required to keep their good looks intact all year.

Ficus Columns

Ficus Nitida (or Indian Laurel) Columns are one of the best evergreens you can find and perfect for building a living privacy "fence." Our Indian Laurel Columns are a favorite throughout Arizona! Plant them along a fence or border to create instant privacy and a lush, dense backdrop.

These evergreens are water-wise and love the heat, which means they can thrive in our desert environment. There is no doubt that Indian Laurel Columns are perfect for creating a living wall. Not only do these columns create a private oasis for your front yard, but they also block out neighbors and reduce local noise.

Oleander

Oleanders are an excellent choice for adding privacy and combining different colors to your design.  From late spring to fall, it blooms fragrant flowers that cluster at the ends of the branches. The flowers range in color from pink to red, white, and pink, so you can use one color or add different colors for a more unique, informal hedge.

Its dense, upright growth habit makes it an excellent screening plant. Its narrow leaves are dark green, leathery, and semi-glossy.  There are many ways you can plant them in your landscape for privacy. Plant them along property lines, lining walkways, or driveways. Whichever way you let them grow, Oleanders will add privacy and color to your landscape.

Carolina Cherry

Sometimes called the Cherry Laurel, the Carolina Cherry is an evergreen tree that makes an outstanding privacy screen. It features bright green foliage and small, fragrant, cream-white flowers that bloom in late winter to spring.

It has a dense, compact growth habit that is ideal for screening and helping to create a private front yard. Everyone loves their near-perfect shape and low maintenance requirements. You can line them up along a fence line to build a natural wall or against an existing fence to block more vertical space.

Come Home to a Private and Beautiful New Yard

Speak with our nursery pros today and allow us to help you select the perfect evergreens that will give you the privacy you need. Plant evergreen trees for privacy and spend more quality time in your yard. Not only will you gain privacy, but you will also add so much more shade to the area and have another reason to spend more time in your front yard!

Design Color into Your YARD

The best part of designing your landscape is that you get to make it your own. You could create a landscape filled with green foliage or add plants that bloom in all the colors of the rainbow! At Moon Valley Nurseries, you will find anything to complete your dream yard. From flowering trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers - we can help you finish your design. 

Where to Place Your Plants

It’s best to find the right plants for your space, initially based on certain conditions. Once you know what type of colors you want in your yard, you can start to decide where you will install your new plants and trees.

Figure out how much sun the plant would be getting, what kind of soil and drainage there is, and a proper watering schedule and process. Mostly everything with a flower will need a minimum of at least four hours of sun to bloom in the Phoenix area. Once you’ve considered all of these factors, you’re one step closer to finding the perfect plant to add the best color to your yard! 

So now, you know where to place your plant that offers plenty of sun exposure in your yard, and you’re willing to commit to a watering schedule (or just installing a drip system). Now you’re ready to get that dramatic backyard oasis of your dreams and pick the best plants.

Plants to Add Warm Colors

There are many plants that you can use in your yard if you want to add warm colors to the environment. Some of the best shrubs that will bring warm tones of color to your yard are Arizona Yellow Bells (pictured above), Little John Bottlebrush, Bougainvillea, and Lantana. 

Plants to Add Cool Colors

If you want to add cool colors into your yard, such as blues and purples, you are in luck! Some of our favorite cool-colored shrubs are Ruellia, Purple Fountain Grass, and Plumbago. Of course, you’ll also get plenty of year-round green with any evergreen shrub/tree you plant in your landscape.

Adding Annual Flowers

Though they only last about six months of the year, the best go-to plant for instant, vibrant color would be annual flowers. The many shades of Vincas, Angelonias, and Pentas add fantastic color in the summer months, while also withstanding our intense heat. 

For fall through spring, you can enjoy the endless color choices that geraniums, petunias, and many more have to offer! Annuals are also a great addition to add as a “filler” around other flowering perennials! 

Design for Contrasting Colors

While some people want to fill their yards with dense, green foliage or bright pops of red and orange all over the yard, an important design factor to consider is how your plants, and the color they bring, will contrast with each other. 

Red contrasts with green colors, that one was easy! Yellow contrasts with purple and blue contrasts with orange. You can utilize this information and choose flowering plants that will simultaneously play off of each other while still creating an overall balance.

Add Color to Your Hedges

A fun idea to add a twist on a privacy hedge would be doing a gradient effect with Oleander! We have white, pink, and red oleanders available at Moon Valley Nurseries, which are just the colors we need to obtain this optical illusion. 

Simply start with a couple white oleanders along a wall, add a light pink, add another white, and then a couple more light pink, and so on. Make a similar pattern to have the colors fade into the red oleander, and bingo! By having the three colors gradually fade into each other, over time, they’ll grow and make the transition even more fluent. If you have a longer wall you’re covering, you can multiply the number of plants needed to fit. 

The effects you can create, and things you can do with plants are limitless and ever-growing! These are just a couple of simple ideas to get your creative juices flowing and thinking of ways your space can come to life with color! 

Visit a Nursery Today

Stop by your nearest nursery and work with one of our professional landscape designers to help create a work of art! 

Fall Palm Planting

Fall is here, and the conditions are perfect for planting palms in your yard. The weather is nice again, and the soil is warm, which means your newly planted palms will have more time to establish a strong, healthy root system.

At Moon Valley Nurseries, we custom grow our palms to thrive in our desert region – meaning they are the best you can find and ready to be delivered and planted. Below are three palms that are perfect for planting in Arizona this fall.

Palms to Fit Any Landscape

Pygmy Date Palm

The Pygmy Date Palm is a great option to use when you need to fill those tight spaces in your landscape. This versatile dwarf palm has a slow growth rate and can develop into a small-sized palm topped with a dense head of fine-textured, curvy, bright green fronds. A fantastic option to add a tropical feel to your yard.

The Pygmy Date Palm is our most popular selling dwarf palm and for good reason. This fine, feather leaf palm can grow both indoors and outdoors. Pygmy Palms can grow in a variety of different soils, is drought-tolerant and requires low-to-moderate water use, once established.

Piru Queen Palm

Piru Queen Palms are prized for having a look that complements all styles of landscapes. Our Piru Queen Palms are grown from superior seedlings with better genetic traits, which gets you the hardiest palm you can find!

These palms are heat-tolerant and feature dark green fronds that grow into a fuller crown, helping add shade to your yard. Add curb appeal by planting these low-maintenance palms in the front yard as a focal point, lining a driveway to create a grand entrance, or around your pool for a tropical backdrop.

Mexican Fan Palm

The Mexican Fan Palm is a classic resort style palm tree that features a single trunk and is easy to grow in Arizona. It can handle cold weather and thrives in the sun. Our “cigar-cut” Mexican Fan Palms give a smooth texture around the trunk that highlights the deep green and unique colors of this palm tree.

Mexican Fan Palms are a stately addition to any landscape and mix well with both large and smaller sized palm trees. We carry all sizes from the small starter palms to the giant, instant resort-style palms for whatever your goals might be for your new yard.

Palm Design Tip: Add landscape lighting to palms to create a beautiful nighttime appearance while highlighting the attractive features of your palms.

Keep your Palms Healthy

Keep your palm looking healthy all year with the proper fertilizers. We created a perfect blend of fertilizer that works on every part of your yard, including palm trees. Moon Dust is an all-purpose tree and plant fertilizer that supplies your palms with needed nutrients to stay healthy and flourish.

Our custom blended Super Palm Juice is specifically made for palm trees in our region. Our blend includes magnesium, which can prevent it from developing an iron deficiency. Palms love this easy-to-apply liquid.

For more fertilizers, click here.

Design Consultations at Every Nursery

Palms will bring value and interest to your Arizona landscape. Let Moon Valley Nurseries do the work for you! Allow our nursery pros to help you design and select the perfect palms for your yard.

More from Moon Valley Nurseries

Click here to find out what to expect when you visit Moon Valley Nurseries.

Click here to learn more about our design consultation process and how easy we make it for our customers to get the job done right and get it done fast.

Click here and see how you can instantly upgrade your yard with some of our favorite designs.

Bedding Plants to Bring your Garden to Life

There are many advantages to living in Phoenix during the fall and winter seasons. The obvious and number one reason why is the gorgeous weather we get this time of year. While most of the country is starting to get cold and people are staying indoors, we’re enjoying our weekends outside.

Another advantage of living in Phoenix and one that is often overlooked is the fall color around us. Deciduous trees are dropping their leaves and showing us that the seasons are actually changing in Phoenix.  Unlike most other parts of the country, our gardens and landscapes are coming back to life with a wide range of blooming flowers and new foliage that produce striking colors all fall season.

If you are looking to add more color to your yard, check out our bedding plants, herbs, and annuals. Keep reading to learn about some of our favorite plants that are ready for fall planting!

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Geranium 

The Geranium thrives in the winter months through spring, producing white, pink, red, or purple flowers in dense clusters on long stalks. The Geranium is exceptionally tolerant of all soils and looks fantastic in bedding areas and pots where instant color is needed. The Geranium grows in full to partial sun.

Fight off Mosquitos

If you have mosquitos taking over your property, Geraniums can help you enjoy your yard again by repelling them away! It has even become a popular ingredient to natural over-the-counter medicines to repel insects.

Petunias

Petunias will bring long-lasting color to your landscape and add a lovely fragrance to the air. These plants can flower from fall to very late spring when temperatures start to rise again. You can find Petunias with blooms of white, purple, pink, and red flowers. They can grow in full to partial sun, so you can plant them anywhere you need a pop of color.

Cyclamen

Cyclamen is a small plant that doesn’t get taller than a foot but produces plenty of colors. In the fall and winter, Cyclamen bloom in shades of pink, white, and red. The small sweet-smelling flowers grow upright on long stems. They like full to partial sun exposure to optimize their blooming season.

Daisies

Daisies are a must-have for your yard when you want to add fun color and a classic look. Daisies spread out a bit as they grow, covering more areas with their yellow centers and bright white petals. You can plant these low-maintenance Daisies in full sun to partial shade.

Snapdragon

If you’re looking for an overwhelming display of annual color, the Snapdragon is the perfect flower for your landscape. Snapdragons thrive in temperatures below 80 degrees with flowers ranging in colors from white, yellow, orange, salmon, pink, red, and burgundy. The flowers grow on stalks in lobes that are divided into upper and lower 'jaws'. Snapdragons perform well in full to partial sun and require regular water.

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Marigold

Known for its large "pom-pom" like flowers, the Marigold is an ideal fall annual for the our region. The Marigold grows best in full sun and it's flower's grow on stems in tight vivid colors from yellow to orange. Able to handle various soil conditions, the Marigold can greatly increase its bloom and blooming times by removing spent flowers.

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Alyssum

Very easy to grow, the "sweet" Alyssum produces small flowers in tight clusters of white, purple. pink and light blue. The Alyssum can tolerate various soil conditions and only requires light watering. It can grow in a flower bed, pot, or even hanging basket. For best results, plant the Alyssum in full sun.  

Visit Moon Valley Nurseries Today

Click here to find your nearest nursery and check these gorgeous flowers out in person. Our nursery professionals are ready to help you find the best plants for your home and landscape today.

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Design a New Yard with the Privacy You Need

New Home in Need of New Yard

Finding your perfect home can be hard, so when you finally do, you might compromise here and there. One of those compromises might be the condition of the landscape. After all, your dream floor plan is harder to find than your dream yard and way more expensive to customize.

Your new yard might be a bit bland, in bad shape, or non-existent! That is where a nursery like Moon Valley comes in to help. Unlike other nurseries, our trees and plants are ready for planting in every size possible. Our wide selection of plant material lets us build you a customized yard designed to make your new house feel like home. Check out some of our favorite trees and shrubs below.

Trees and Shrubs for Your New Landscape

Shumard Oak

The Shumard Oak is an impressive choice to include in your landscape. This oak tree is a medium-to-large size tree and grows into a canopy with a wide-spreading reach, which creates a large area of shade all around it.

This canopy can also help create a full screen to add more privacy to your home, especially if you are surrounded by two-story homes! This tree is a fast-growing species of oak that is very tough and long-living! This tree is known for its traditional look with large dark green leaves that can grow up to eight inches long.

Little John Bottlebrush

The Little John Bottlebrush, or simply 'Little John', is a versatile and hardy shrub that produces dark red, bushy flowers during the spring through fall. The Little John Bottlebrush is a popular accent plant used in many types of landscapes.

It is commonly used to create a unique, informal hedge or as a colorful accent in a desert-style yard. This small-to-medium shrub thrives in our regions and loves the heat. Once these are planted, you will find hummingbirds and butterflies regularly stopping by your yard.

Japanese Boxwood

If you're looking to create a small-to-medium hedge, the Japanese Boxwood is a fantastic pick for your new yard. This hardy evergreen has attractive, bright green foliage that will stand out all year long.  

The Japanese Boxwood shrub has a slow growth rate and does not blossom. This combination means you will spend minimal time cleaning and pruning your boxwoods throughout the year. You can plant them in rows along the border of your property to create a visible barrier or to add symmetry in other areas of your yard.

Purple Lantana

Purple Lantana is one of the most colorful plants around with an abundance of beautiful purple/lavender that bloom half of the year, from spring to fall. The Lantana thrives in the hot summer months and is highly tolerant to drought-like conditions, which makes it easy to plant anywhere in your yard.

Purple Lantana grows and spreads quickly, which is perfect for covering up the bare ground and adding more color to your landscape. Once established, this ground cover will only need little-to-moderate watering and doesn't need much maintenance throughout the year. For a cleaner, formal look, you might prefer to trim it for a more formal look to your landscape.

Design to Create Privacy

Sometimes it's hard to tell precisely what type of privacy you have in your home until after you have settled in! Your neighbors may have a direct view of your backyard, or your windows might perfectly align to theirs with a clear view of each other's home!

You can fix these issues by designing privacy into your landscape and instantly blocking out the views. Whether you need to block a whole section or add a tall screen to block the views of two-story windows, our nursery has something that will solve your issues, such as the trees listed below.

Trees to Add Privacy

Southern Live Oak

The Southern Live Oak is one of the most stunning trees you can plant in your yard. It produces a wide canopy of dark green, leather-like leaves. The branches and foliage grow into a dense form to create privacy AND shade for your yard. This large privacy tree is drought-tolerant, once established.

If you plant several Live Oaks in a row, it will give your landscape a privacy wall above the fencing in your yard that provides immense protection and shade coverage. This evergreen oak also makes for the perfect ornamental tree and looks gorgeous, surrounded by colorful shrubs!

Italian Cypress

Italian Cypress is a fast-growing tree, perfect for a natural fence! Plant these column trees in a row and create an attractive European-style property divider while also blocking out your neighbors. You can plant these narrow privacy hedges in your yard to bring the look of the Mediterranean to your landscape.

The Italian Cypress tree is a perfect option when you have limited space in your yard. Because of its tall and narrow growth habit, it can be planted anywhere you need to help create more privacy.

Ficus Nitida Columns

These evergreen trees can create an immediate privacy screen around your yard and are the ideal choice to create a perfect yard with a classic look. They thrive in our desert environments and require little water, so they are perfect for Arizona!

Ficus Nitida Columns can handle pruning to any size or shape you need to fit your specific needs and get the job done. Plant these beautiful privacy hedges in your yard and take in the dense green foliage that adds an impressive presence to your landscape.

Ready for Your New Private Oasis?

Have More Questions?

Visit or call your nearest nursery and let one of our expert designers help you today.

This summer has been a hot one, and your landscape needs some help recovering and getting ready for fall! This time of year, you’re going to start to see your landscape come back to life thanks to the fantastic fall weather coming back. This is also an excellent time to check your trees, plants, and lawn to see if there are any issues such as damaged branches, yellowing foliage, wilted leaves, dry patches of grass, and so on. You’ll want to spot that now and help as much as you can to guarantee the best growing season for your yard.

So, how can you help your yard recover over the next few weeks? We asked our nursery professionals and compiled the top recommendations to help your trees, plants, and lawn gain back their full strength and bring your beautiful landscape back to life!

Tips to Help Your Yard Recover from Summer

Are the leaves on your trees looking a bit yellow? Has the heat gotten the better of your plant materials? The best way to help combat the heat stressors and help your trees and plants grow healthy is to use fertilizers and supplements. Our custom products help trees, palms, and other plants grow to their full potential. Healthy trees and plants will handle the changing weather much better than those still weak from heat stress.

Add Fertilizer to your Trees and Plants

Our Moon Dust fertilizer is an organic blend developed especially for tough, compact alkaline soils found in our region. Our custom fertilizer is made with the perfect ratio of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus for healthy living. Moon Dust can be used on every plant material in your yard from large trees to potted flowers!

To learn more, click here.

To purchase, click here.

Amend your Soil

Moon Valley Nurseries Soil and Water Conditioner is the perfect primer for fertilizers. Our Soil and Water Conditioner helps provide more nutrients to your trees and plants by loosening up the hardened soil in your yard. It is great for making sure your trees and plants get all the water and fertilizer it needs without wasting any of it!

To learn more, click here.

To purchase, click here.

Supplement Plant Growth

Our Super Charged Moon Juice is specially formulated with Furst liquid technology including a blend of organic enzymes and amino acids that help stimulate the growth of trees and plants, along with new root hair growth, which helps plants increase moisture intake. Moon Juice was made to help recover from seasonal stress!

To learn more, click here.

To purchase, click here.

Make your Lawn Green Again

If you have grass in your landscape, then you know how much it can struggle during the summer with full sun exposure all day long. Our Moon Royale Turf Fertilizer acts fast to restore your grass to a healthy, luxurious green while also decreasing weed growth and disease problems.

To learn more, click here.

To purchase, click here.

Adjust your Watering Schedule

Quick Watering Tips

• Water early in the morning while it is still hot
• Water deeply to saturate the entire root system
•  Allow your soil to nearly dry between watering sessions

Watering is one of the most important aspects of keeping trees and plants healthy. Soon, we will have shorter days and cooler nights; so, you want to be careful that we are not over-watering. You will also want to transition our water systems from summer to fall settings as it starts to cool down, which is where our watering guides come in handy!

Clean Up your Trees

By applying fertilizer and supplements that we talked about and watering your landscape correctly, your trees will recover from our tough Arizona summer and regain their greenness and health! Another way to help your trees out is to remove any fallen or damaged branches from the monsoon season, or that aren’t doing so well. This will pave the way for new growth to take over!

Plant New Trees for Fall

Fall is the best time to plant in our region and right now is an excellent time to check your yard and see what you might need, or want, to add to your landscape. Maybe you lost some plant material from heat stress and want to replace it, or perhaps you see a need for large shade trees to help keep your house cooler for future summers.

Planting now is best because the weather is cooler, and the ground is nice and warm from the summer. This creates the perfect conditions for planting new trees. It also gives your new trees and plants time to establish their root systems, so they flourish next spring!

Let our Tree Care do the Work for you!

Our Tree Care team of professionals is ready to help you! Our team is staffed with ISA Certified Arborists and Certified Nursery Professionals. They guarantee the highest quality of services for your trees and landscapes. Whether you need tree or stump removal, trimming, soil fertilizer injections, or any other tree care issues you need help with – our team can do it!  

No matter how hard your landscape was affected by the hot Arizona summer, Moon Valley Nurseries is here to help. Visit your nearest Moon Valley Nurseries location and see what we have to offer for yourself!

 

Design the Best Yard for Your New Home

So, you just bought a house; congratulations! We can relate to the time, work, and frustration that comes with buying a home and starting a huge investment. From the moment you make the decision, the process starts at full speed! You might find yourself driving through neighborhoods looking for possible options or spending all your lunch breaks and evenings searching through online listings. This could last weeks or months, and it only gets more stressful.

Once you narrowed a few homes down, you could finally start going and seeing them in person to see if it is the perfect fit for your family and their needs.  You finally walked into one house that felt like home, and your mind was set. The floorplan was exactly what you wanted for your growing family. It was perfect.

The Perfect Home Doesn’t Equal the Perfect Yard…Yet

Sometimes when you find your dream home, it doesn’t always come with a matching dream yard. Luckily, creating your new yard to go to with your new home is not as hard as you might think! When you come to Moon Valley Nurseries to complete your yard, we make it as easy as 1-2-3 for you, AND we do all the work! Keep reading to learn how to get started on your design.

MOON VALLEY DESIGN PROCESS

Whether you need large shade trees, privacy hedges, or flowering shrubs that will bring your property to life, our team can help you find any plant material for your region to create your dream yard.

Design Online with Backyard Builder

Our nursery has created a designer app that has helped our customers envision their goals clearer and faster. The Backyard Builder lets you see the vision for your yard in moments flat. And even better? You can create multiple designs!

You can upload picture after picture and use a plethora of digital copies of our plants and trees to lay around your yard! Always wondered what a Ficus Indian Laurel tree would look like next to the wall blocking the greenbelt over your west wall? Drag and drop into the picture, and now you don’t have to imagine. You can see it clear as day!

You can easily create your account so you can save each design. After saving your images, you are already at the front of the line to have a designer contact you to bring your dreams to life!

Click here to get started with Backyard Builder.

Free In-Store Consultations

Every Moon Valley Nurseries location has expert landscape designers and nursery professionals that will help you create the best design for your yard. We recommend that you schedule a consultation with your nearest nursery. An appointment will guarantee that you are helped as soon as you arrive!

*At-Home Consultations are also available with a small fee. Ask your nearest nursery about availability. *

Click your state below to schedule a consultation with an expert designer today.

Arizona

Nevada

California

Texas

Learn More from Moon Valley Nurseries

Click here to get design ideas that will instantly upgrade your yard.

Click here to see how to pick the perfect trees for your yard when you come to the nursery! 

Click here to find out if a xeriscape design is perfect for your home or property.

 

Now is the Best Time to Plant Trees in Arizona

The fall season has finally arrived, and as always, it's the best time to plant in the desert! Warm sunny days and cool nights create the perfect condition for trees and plants to establish strong vigorous root systems while getting a break from the sun above ground. This ideal balance encourages root growth all season and offers even more benefits to fall planting.

Benefits of Planting in the Fall

Better Root Establishment

In our region, the soil usually never freezes, which allows your newly planted trees an opportunity to establish its root system throughout the fall/winter.

Less Water Usage

Because of the shorter days and the cooler weather, newly planted trees and shrubs will require less water than they would need if they were planted during the spring.

Quality time to Grow for Spring

By the time spring hits, your tree or shrub will have a solid, better-established root system and will be able to focus its energy on top growth.

Best Landscaping Tips for Arizona

Change Watering Schedule

If there is one thing that Arizona homeowners with beautiful yards are good at, it's that you stay on top of your watering game. Now that we are in October, you must re-adjust yet again, except this time you can finally start cutting back on your water usage!

The weather change is going to help the ground retain moisture longer, therefore, permitting us to use less water going forward. Make sure that you are watering less often but still watering with the right amount of water each session. The soil should be saturated about two to three feet deep around the tree.

Remove Weeds

The first step when fighting off weeds in your yard is prevention. You will save yourself so much time if you apply pre-emergent herbicide to your yard before the weeds even start to grow!

If any weeds do get past the pre-emergent herbicide, you should try to pull them out as soon as you see them pop out of the ground. As they grow, they drop more seeds, and then you have more weeds! If you pull them early, you can terminate new growth before it even starts. Consider adding mulch to areas to reduce the number of sprouting weeds. Ask our nursery professionals what the best option might be for your landscape.

Fertilize Trees, Plants, and Lawn

We cannot stress the importance of fertilizing everything in your landscape, and we mean everything from trees, flowers, and plants to your lawn! Because fall is a prime growing season in our region, this is when your trees and plants are going to be utilizing the most nutrients from fertilizers.

Once the temperature drops, the material in your landscape will decrease its top growth and focus on root growth. This creates the best environment for your new trees to establish a healthy root system. Fertilizing now and throughout the winter will allow the plant to soak up those much-needed nutrients and store them for explosive spring top growth.

Everything should be fed with the proper fertilizer and supplements to ensure optimal growth during this crucial time.

Our Moon Dust Fertilizer is our top-selling product because it works on everything in your yard! Moon Dust can be used on all your trees and plants. It boasts larger and tastier fruit production when applied to citrus and fruit trees and significantly increases bloom cycles in flowering plants and trees.

Our custom blended Super Charged Moon Juice is a staple that should be used on all your trees, plants, flowers, vegetables and more all year round. Moon Juice helps boost growth and helps your existing trees recover faster from any heat stress it endured over the summer.

If you have a lawn in your yard, you will want to add our Moon Royale Turf Fertilizer to bring your grass back to life! Lawns can sometimes take the hardest beating from the sun, so it’s important to help give it optimal nutrients going into fall. Moon Royale will help break down the soil and quickly green up any lawn type.

At a Moon Valley Nurseries location near you, you can find fertilizers and other beneficial products for every plant in your landscape. Our fertilizers can be used on everything from turf, palms, desert trees, shade trees, palms, and more. Now is the best time to give your landscape a helpful boost!

See our full line of products here to help your yard flourish this fall.

Trim Your Trees

Making sure you have your landscape well-cared for is a vital part of keeping your yard beautiful and protecting your investment. You should trim off any dead or sun-damaged branches, cut back any excessive branches, or branches that may have been damaged by summer storms.

If you have citrus and fruit trees in your landscape, take time to examine them and remove any suckers (green branches that grow fast and steal nutrients from your tree). Once the suckers are removed, your tree will have better nutrient intake to focus more effort into growing delicious fruit. 

Moon Valley Nurseries Tree Care Division

Our Tree Care Division is available in Phoenix and surrounding areas to help with any of your tree care needs or concerns. Our ISA Certified arborists and nursery professionals can handle any job such as storm clean-up, tree trimming/pruning, tree and stump removal, and deep root fertilizer injections.

Reach out to our Tree Care Division to schedule a consultation or ask any questions you may have about your trees.

Learn More from Moon Valley Nurseries 

Click here to learn more about fall planting season and why it’s the best time to plant trees in Arizona.

Click here to find out how our nursery pros can help you design your own Hollywood-style hedge!

Click here and learn how to pick the perfect tree for your landscape.

First, I'd like to say congratulations on your new trees and making your yard dreams come true! Now let's dive into what to expect and how to care for your trees within the first 90 days, which is the most critical time while your new tree has found its new home. 

Your new trees go through quite a bit in those first 90 days. During those 90 days, the roots will start taking to the ground and absorbing essential nutrients and water in the soil. The first week or so after new planting, the trees need to be watered every day. We recommend saturating your soil to depths of two to three feet and at least as wide as the tree. 

When we install trees, we create a tree well around it for additional help with proper watering so filling that up will be very important during this phase. Then after that initial watering, you're going to transition to the watering instructions that you received with your purchase, which is located on the back of the receipt. You can also click the button below to see our online watering guide for new trees.

The watering recommendations are just that; recommendations. Every yard has different soil conditions and sun exposure. It is a good idea to monitor your trees regularly to notice any issues as soon as they appear. 

Things to look out for between watering sessions is if your soil is still wet and damp when it comes time to the next watering schedule. If it is, your soil isn't draining properly, which means it is dense. You can continue to apply more Soil and Water Conditioner, which will loosen that soil. If your trees are having the opposite problem and your soil looks super dry, increase your watering time by a few more minutes or gallons. 

Another thing you should keep an eye out for is standard plant shock. This shouldn't last long at all and some trees won't even go through it, but in the event It does it will present itself typically in a few ways. 

You might notice the leaves start to brown at the tips, usually due to salt burn. This can happen if your soil has high salt levels. Do not be alarmed and continue to water and use Soil and Water Conditioner and the tree will fix itself.

Another common sign of transplant shock is slight wilting after planting. Continue to follow the first-week watering schedule, and you will see you tree perk up and go right back to normal. 

Lastly, yellowing of the leaves usually indicates an iron deficiency. This is common when it has left its old environment, and the tree is getting used to its new home and soil conditions. Applying the Moon Juice and Soil and Water Conditioner will speed up the recovery process and let the tree absorb the best amount of Iron for it.

Visit Brad in Surprise

My names Brad Howard, and I am currently the Yard Manager for our Surprise location. After serving 12 years in the United States Army, I found myself a new home with Moon Valley Nurseries. I take pride in serving our community and environment. I am overall responsible for over six acres of inventory and keeping all plant and tree life thriving and healthy until it finds a new home within our community. 

We hope you love your new yard and if you have any questions, reach out to me or any of our teams here in the valley. We will help you make any adjustments needed to keep your trees thriving and your yard beautiful.