My backyard is cooler than your backyard.

Most people who have been to my house know that I've got a pretty sweet deal.  Most people who have been to my house during the daytime hours also know that my backyard is one of the best parts of my very sweet deal of a living situation.  My landlord's father (who built this house in 1947 and passed away a couple of years ago) put a great deal of time into the yard over the many decades he spent in this house, and it's obvious that things have been well-cared for over the years.  Part of my rental agreement is that I take good care of the yard and the plants in the yard, and though I've always seen to this task with care, I've recently begun to find it actually quite enjoyable to spend time pruning, planting, watering, and maintaining the yard and it's growth.

As for inventory, the permanent plants of our backyard include:
Citrus-- One huge lemon tree, one huge grapefruit tree, one tangelo tree, one small orange tree, and three unidentified decorative citrus trees (they're probably oranges, but the fruit doesn't ripen and is mostly just for show).
Roses-- About 30 linear feet of heirloom roses, some of which are taller than me, and all of which have amazingly beautiful flowers.  Two shades of pink, red, peach, whitish-pink, and yellow.
Desert Plants-- We have a few prickly pear cacti, a few funky ground-cover cacti, and a bunch of agave.
Flowers-- Bougainvillea and Birds of Paradise.

And as for landscaping and design, our yard also includes:
A tiled counter-top with a built-in charcoal grill and storage space underneath.
A slatted, arbor-style patio roof that provides partial shade (and somewhere to hang our hammock).
Numerous handmade tables and chairs, including a full-sized picnic table with benches.
A functional underground irrigation system with both sprinklers and drip-lines installed in almost every planting location possible.

So, yeah.  It's a pretty sweet deal.

Josh and I have been saying for quite some time now that we wanted to get a lime tree for the backyard.  A couple of weeks ago, we took a trip to one of the nurseries here in town in order to get a lime tree, and we ended up spending a couple of hours wandering around the place.  We bought the intended lime tree as well as a few other small plants and a hummingbird feeder.

Mesquite Valley Grower's Nursery

When we got home we planted the little tree in a pot and began to go about cleaning up things in the yard and trimming up some of the plants that had been hit hard by the freezes we had earlier in the year.  Josh decided to take a look at the irrigation system, which up to this point we had never used because my landlord had matter-of-factly stated that it did not work.  Not surprisingly, Mr. Engineer decided that he could and would repair the system.  It took a few trips to the hardware store, some digging, and some searching for leaky hoses, but we now have a fully-functional drip system which not only provides water to 95% of the plants in our entire backyard, but also is on a timer!  I never thought that watering everything by hand was very much of a big deal, but I must admit that I'm quite excited about the prospect of not having to worry about keeping things hydrated during our intensely hot summer.

Engineering.

The lime tree!  It's a Mexican Dwarf lime tree, and is already showing the first signs of new fruit.

My avacado tree is growing!  Started this from a discarded pit a couple of months ago.

So, in addition to trimming back everything, repairing the irrigation, planting a lime tree, and potting a bunch of other small plants that I've picked up over the last couple of months, I also planted sunflowers along the entire length of the back wall.  I'm hopeful for these because if they actually get as big as they're supposed to (5-8ft), it will look awesome!  We also painted the picnic table red.  It pops.

In this picture- taken from the back door of the house- you can see the roses (along the wall on the right), the brick and tile counter with grill and big silly dinner bell (the charcoal grill is built in, and we also have the stand-alone gas grill), the patio arbor roof, the picnic table which is now bright red, one of many agave plants with stalks, and numerous citrus trees in the background.

This bike has been hidden in the back of the yard behind the citrus trees, but I moved it when we had some workers come to trim the trees.  When I moved it, I found a small license plate bolted to the back which says, "1956 TUCSON".  I'm thinking about planting something pretty in the front basket.

I don't really think that any of these photographs do it justice, but I imagine that the general idea will come across.  The general idea is that my backyard is cooler than your's.  If you don't believe me, just come visit and see for yourself.