For those who were not here to experience last summer’s heat and humidity, it was a bad one.
Our desertscape had just been installed last year as summer arrived. Plants in the desertscape did pretty well, but we have lost some pyracantha hedge plants due to lack of irrigation quantity. When our landscaper realized that there was too little irrigation to the pyracantha hedges and one large pine tree, he got busy adding emitter hose to both sides of the hedges. Five Red Yucca were planted in the exterior desertscape where ocotillo of the original planting did not take root and live. The five pyracantha were used to fill in hedges where plants died over the hot summer. One entire L-shaped hedge was replaced this fall as the existing one was old and declining.
Sagging Patio Ceilings
Over the years, Canyon South 1 has had a history of repairing sagging patio ceilings. Our investigation this past fall, determined that one unit had priority for repair. A trusted contractor was consulted for a cheaper and less invasive solution to this repair — plus two board members put their best engineering thinking to work. Their suggestions were not followed — for the better we’re sure. This repair went well, looks very good and is affordable, so other patio ceilings will be repaired in this manner at a rate of one or two a year on priority units.
Pool and Spa Heating Schedule
We return to our normal pool heating this next season, beginning in October when the Center Pool will be heated first for two months. December and January will see the East and West pools heated, then back to the Center pool for February and March, finishing with the East and West pools for April and May.
Spas at all pools will continue to be heated year-round.
Pool and Spa Re-plastering and Lighting
New waterline tile at Center PoolThe East Pool and Spa are our only remaining pools to be re-plastered in this cycle and they are planned for updating this fall. New tile, plaster and auto-fill devices will be installed, probably September and October.
Jackhammering out the old plasterRammell Construction was awarded the bid to re-plaster the Center pool. Work began on Sept. 10, 2015, and they finished the startup for that pool as of Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015. Other items of construction remained to be done, but the pool was open for use. There was a 3-week delay in construction while waiting for the Health Department inspection.
About 3 years ago, Canyon South 1 installed seven new LED pool and spa lights as they were supposed to be longer-lived and use less electricity. These fixtures began failing about a year and a half after installation and thus far four have failed. Two of our contractors, JSR Pools and Horizon Electric lobbied the supplier/manufacturer of these fixtures so that we have been able to replace them for only the labor to install. In the future we will take better care to manage these fixtures during pool and spa re-plastering.
Groundskeeping
In keeping with state and local water agencies’ rules and recommendations and bowing to the general consensus in the Valley, CS1 Board decided to forgo the normal overseeding with annual ryegrass this fall. Therefore we went through the winter season complying with the irrigation schedule of Mon-Wed-Fri only and only during nighttime hours, morning and night. The Bermuda grass did its biological thing and went dormant – no one died because of it! Without the competition from the annual ryegrass, various weed species acquired a strong foothold in the dormant Bermuda. This required us to apply pre-emergence and post-emergence weed killer to combat these weeds.
Palm pruning is on schedule to begin during the first two weeks of June this late spring, 2016.
— Carl Toland