Happy Halloween!

Aren't folks creative? I especially like the bones coming out of the ground. Simple and effective.


Remember, it is the ghosts and ghouls who need protection out there tonight, rather than the other way around. So let's all be extra careful and watchful.

San Tan Village Opening

The grand opening of the San Tan Village mall has been getting some press. The AZ Republic says that the weekend was more profitable than expectations:

Sales at the new SanTan Village, a mixed-use project in Gilbert that has 1.2 million square feet of retail space, surpassed expectations during the center's opening weekend, according to project developer Westcor.

"Foot traffic and sales steadily increased throughout the weekend," Art Coppola, president and chief executive officer of Macerich, Westcor's parent company, said in a statement.

The Mister and I checked it out, and we agree that there were a lot of folks there. I heard someone say that Gilbert is growing up.

There are also some murmurs about the gigantic signs on the outside of the Victoria's Secret store:

Irate mallgoers have contacted Gilbert officials and town council members, expressing shock and dismay about large posters of scantily clad women hanging outside a lingerie store at the new outdoor mall.

The displays in question are at the Victoria's Secret store in SanTan Village, which had its grand-opening celebration last week.

Although many mall throughout the Valley have a Victoria's Secret store, the new Gilbert location occupies a prominent corner outdoor location, and the signage is much larger than an ordinary window display.

I'm not sure how the store will respond; but I am sure that Gilbert will not easily give up its family-friendly atmosphere.

There are plenty of new stores and restaurants yet to open, so it will seem like "the new mall" for quite some time. By the way, some folks may be surprised to see that it is an open-air mall, which is the latest trend in mall building. Part of the allure is the sense that one could conceivably drive right up to a store and park on the street. The truth, of course, is that those front parking spots will almost always be full, but it is at least possible. The openness also makes it feel larger than a typical mall, and it is, but not by much. Most traditional malls are about a million square feet, and SanTan Village is 1.2 million square feet.

I'm pretty excited that we don't have to drive the outer loop to get to the theater. But then, I get excited about things like roads and such, so don't mind me.

Do go look around at the new mall.

An argument for grass

And not by us!


Lawn-watering issue is complicated

Keeping grass green drains resources, but also helps keep landscapes, nearby homes cool

Chris Martin
Special for The Republic
Oct. 19, 2007 12:00 AM
This article is one in a series of articles contributed by Arizona State University's Global Institute of Sustainability. The institute catalyzes and advances interdisciplinary research and education on environmental, economic and social sustainability, especially as it relates to urban areas.

It's October in Phoenix, and the public's attention has once again turned to overseeding, ryegrass, and winter lawns. Phoenicians are blessed with a year-round growing season. This favorable climate gives residents the luxury of growing lush summer and winter lawns. Soft, deep-green ryegrass winter lawns are particularly attractive to residents and winter visitors because the level of people's outdoor recreation and lawn play dramatically increases as the weather cools.

Recently, the annual fall scalping of Bermuda grass summer lawns and overseeding with ryegrass to grow a winter lawn has been scrutinized. Pressure mounts to increase water-conservation efforts in response to a rapidly expanding population base. In the last several years, our municipalities have encouraged residents to conserve water resources - to allow their heat-loving Bermuda grass lawns to go dormant and brown during winter and to not overseed.









Consumptive water-use patterns by all outdoor landscape greenery, including lawns, are driven by temperature, and not surprisingly, are highest during warm weather. On average, total water demand by summer lawns in Phoenix from May to September is equivalent to about 35 inches of precipitation, or roughly 61 percent of a lawn's annual water requirement. In contrast, average water demand by winter lawns during the normally cool months of November to March is equivalent to about 10 inches of precipitation, or roughly 29 percent of a lawn's annual water needs. It predictably follows that the irrigation requirements of lush winter lawns are normally lower than that of their summer counterparts.

Should our desert cities encourage residents to forgo winter lawns to conserve water? Or does it make more sense to encourage a winter lawn and forgo a summer lawn to conserve considerably more water? If only it were that simple. Summer lawns have value, too, especially when the monsoon is not present and the weather is very hot. Summer lawns create cool landscape microclimates, pockets of cooler air, by a process called evapotranspiration.

Evapotranspiration, or "ET," from a lawn surface involves the consumption of heat energy that cools the surrounding air as water changes from a liquid to a gas. This process is similar to the experience of getting out of a swimming pool and feeling the cool sensation of water evaporating from your skin. Recent studies at ASU have shown that during hot summer afternoons, the surfaces of homes next to a healthy summer lawn can be as much as 10 degrees cooler than similar homes surrounded by desert landscaping. The effects of this microclimate effect could mean less demand for air-conditioning and less electricity use.

Landscape water conservation might not mean doing without a healthy summer or winter lawn, but instead could be brought about through more efficient control of irrigation watering schedules, proper mowing and fertilization practices, and/or use of gray, or reclaimed water. For example, major irrigation companies now sell "smart" electronic irrigation controllers that adjust lawn-watering schedules to account for daily changes in landscape ET water loss.

Though the popularity of desert landscaping in the Phoenix metro area is strong, ASU researchers have found that people's preferences for lawns in their home landscapes is even stronger. If we can apply the best lawn-management practices and optimize lawn size and placement within a landscape, we can attain our landscape water-conservation targets without eliminating lawns as an element of residential landscapes.



Chris A. Martin is a professor of horticulture at Arizona State University's Polytechnic campus and is an associated faculty member with the School of Sustainability.

Seeing The Forest AND The Trees

The Mister and I were giving a tour of Morrison Ranch to one of my college roommates and her husband yesterday and she kept commenting that things looked so clean and tidy. When The Mister was talking about our desire to symbolize groves by putting our trees in straight lines, evenly spaced, she exclaimed, "That's it! That's why it looks so orderly! It's the trees."

So when I saw this article this morning in the East Valley Tribune, I had to share it:

The new owner of a Tempe shopping center kicked off a renovation project by demolishing a dense row of trees to boost the strip mall’s profile. The center instantly became more visible — just not exactly in the way the owner hoped for.

Neighbors of the McClintock Fountains have complained the owner destroyed the center’s best feature — lots of big trees — to expose the bland architecture of the buildings.

Tempe forced the owner to stop after getting complaints and discovering the owner had cut down more trees than outlined in a plan the city had approved. Now the owner is having to rework some elements of the renovation and try to mend fences with the very neighbors it’s trying to attract.

Pam Rupprecht said she’d prefer to have a tree in front of her store even if it means her sign isn’t as easy to read. It’s not the signs that draw people to the center at the northeast corner of McClintock Drive and Warner Road, she said.

“People come here for the trees,” said Rupprecht, who owns the Reading Clinic.
The trees were taken out because some tenants complained the public couldn’t see stores behind a wall of trees, said Stephen Mariani, vice president with West Valley Properties.

Well, well, well. We have fought this battle from the very beginning of Morrison Ranch. Store owners do indeed have a tendency to dislike trees in front of their signage, because they feel like folks from the street can't see them. I have always felt, as one who collects shade when she shops, that most consumers know where the stores are, and in fact might CHOOSE a store where one can park in the shade. I don't know anything about this McClintock center except what I am reading, but the comments ring true. This produced another chuckle:

A tree company took out more than it was supposed to, Mariani said, through a miscommunication.

But some neighbors doubt that.

The company’s Valley operations are run at an office in the center, so Mariani should have had a better idea what the landscape crew was doing, said Darryl Jacobson-Barnes.

“With his office right on the property, there’s no way he didn’t know what was going on,” Jacobson-Barnes said.

Mariani said the trees came down too fast and that it’s not reasonable to have a company employee watch as every plant is removed.

The Mister's response was to agree. "They should do it the way we do it, and have TWO employees watch as every tree/plant is planted or removed." He made the comment to our guests yesterday that if a tree and a light were battling for the same spot through some miscommunication somewhere, that the tree would win, much to the surprise of the person trying to put a light or something there. But the spacing of trees throughout Morrison Ranch is important, and the result may be undefined, but obvious.

Clean and tidy.

Getting To Know Gilbert

Are you new to Gilbert? Do you want a rundown on Gilbert's services and community organizations, along with a free breakfast? Then you might want to head over to the library on Saturday, according to this AZ Republic article:

Gilbert's farm roots are remain firmly in the ground, but with the town's explosive increase in population, it's become better known for its vast number of newcomers than for its cotton fields.

Many of those newcomers are still settling in. Some don't know their neighbors, and some haven't found the right opportunity to become more familiar with their community.

But Saturday, they'll get that chance.

Gilbert officials are inviting folks new to the area to a new resident social, where they can meet fellow newcomers and other residents while dining on a free continental breakfast. They'll also be able to learn more about the town government and services, and hear about Gilbert's community organizations.

The event is sponsored by the local Congress of Neighborhoods and the town's Neighborhood Services division.

The town prides itself on an active volunteer population. Volunteers participate in activities that range from helping out at the Southeast Regional Library to participating in a local emergency preparedness program.

Representatives of local employers and community organizations will be at the casual social to discuss their services and opportunities for involvement, Gilbert Neighborhood Services officials said.

Gee, even if you aren't a newcomer, I'll bet you would be welcome.

Exceeding Expectations

One of the phrases you will hear The Mister say often is "under-promise and over-perform." You know what I'm talking about; you order something that is out of stock and the clerk says they'll have it in a week. After a series of phone calls and frustrations, you finally get the item three weeks later, and you are frustrated with the clerk and the store. If the clerk had told you that the item would take a month to receive and then you got it in three weeks, you'd be pleased with the efficiency. It's all about expectations.

That's why I'm not hanging my head about the Diamondbacks getting swept out of the NL Division series. The fact that they made it as far as they did is amazing. They didn't qualify as underdogs, because they weren't even on the radar screen for most folks. And yet, here they are, with a sad series loss, but so much farther down the road than expected. I know I'm not the only one who wishes they would have finished off the Rockies at the end of the regular season, but it was not to be.

So I congratulate the team on bringing some exciting baseball back to the city; they are fun to watch and have won plenty of fans back with their enthusiasm. Of course, by exceeding expectations this year, they have raised the bar now. Next year we'll be expecting a little more. I'll bet they overperform.

Does this look like it could be in Morrison Ranch? I thought so. But it is in northern California. We went looking for good ideas, and came back with a few. Now where to put that....??

Fishing For Fun

Someone asked me a question recently about the fishing in the lakes in Morrison Ranch, which I dutifully passed on to The Water Expert. He copied me with his answer, and I thought I'd pass it along for the benefit of other residents who might enjoy fishing.

Remember that our lakes are actually reservoirs of water to irrigate the turf and trees in Morrison Ranch and we use reclaimed water. That is why all fishing is catch and release. I'll let The Water Expert explain what types of fish reside in the lakes, and what the fish like to eat:

This year we have stocked the Highland Groves and Town Center North Lake in January and April of 2007 with:

150 half-pound to 2 pound Catfish; they eat whatever dies and sinks to the bottom.

350 Israeli Carp; they eat those pesky little white Midge Flies.

50 White Amur - they help control the algae.

350 4-6 inch Large Mouth Bass for sport.

7500 Gamboozie Minnows for the Bass to eat.

The Bass can be caught on bright colored spinner bait. The catfish can be caught on shrimp purchased at the meat counter at Basha's. They only like Basha's shrimp, not Safeway or Albertson's.

Hope this helps!

If You Walk to School With the Principal...

...there's no way you can be deemed "tardy." That's The Mister's assessment, and I think he's exactly right. This morning there was quite a horde of kids and parents meeting in Higley Groves West to enjoy Walk To School Day to Greenfield Elementary:



Mr. Rimer (Greenfield's principal), Bias For Action, The First Cousin, and the Morrison Ranch HOA folks were all there to greet folks and offer some muffins, juice and milk:




Delightfully surprised by the big crowd, they ran out of juice and napkins, but nobody seemed to feel left out.

Some young boys that were on their way to school on their bikes came over to see what all the commotion was about, and when I informed them there was food, they ran over to see what was available; after parking their bikes in the time-honored way, of course:




Right on time, Mr. Rimer took off, looking like the Pied Piper with all the crowd in his tracks; it was fun to watch:

Calling All Greenfield Elementary Folks

Tomorrow is the day that Greenfield Elementary has chosen for celebrating the International Walk To School Day. Here is the info for Morrison Ranch residents (if you are anywhere near my age and can't read the fine print, click on the image and it will enlarge):


If your kids attend Highland Park Elementary, they will have a similar event in November, and I will try to remind you of the date.

The weather is perfect for that walk to school...

It was worth the wait

Alright, I am going to first state the obvious. I am totally biased about this topic.

I was taking pictures of the landscape in Highland Groves to describe our approach to landscaping in our future business park. And I was looking at this shot and how beautiful the area was. And then I remembered how 18 months ago it felt like the parks in Highland Groves would NEVER be done. Well, they are done, and the trees are growing (though not much this time of year), and, as I said above, it was worth the wait. This is the time of year when we can get out there and enjoy the open space. You may see me riding my bike through there any time now.