Desert Landscaping for Desert Pools

You notice I didn't title this post: Landscaping for Swimming Pools, that's because the very best landscaping around your pool is none whatsoever. A Zen Buddhist garden would perhaps be nice. What I am getting at is don't load up the area around your pool with a lot of vegetation that is going to sooner or later get inside the pool. Nothing is more annoying than to go on a service call and into a potential customers back yard and find that their pool is surrounded by Eucalyptus or Pine trees, Bougainvillea, or Oleander bushes. These plants shed like crazy, the leaves of the Eucalyptus in particular appear to be designed specifically to plug up the pool skimmer and Pine tree needles are very difficult to scoop up off the pool bottom. Bougainvillea bushes can shed their pink fake blossoms all over the surface, Oleander leaves are poisonous. These are the very worst plants around a pool. I have asked pool owners to cut down trees and bushes, in order to make their pools usable.

The sequence of damage that can occur has been covered in an earlier post but happens often enough that I want to say it again. That is that once the skimmer becomes full then the pump begins to pull water from the bottom of the pool and/or the automatic pool cleaner. The debris either plugs the main drain or the cleaner, and then the pump becomes starved for water. Now, the pump may start to pull debris through the main drain for a while, and start to fill the pump strainer basket. But at some point that basket is going to be filled and the pump will overheat and a melt down will occur. Then you will have a warped pump housing and perhaps warped pipes. So, the more vegetation you plant around the around the swimming pool the more likely, and the more often you will have this problem. If you want some shade, invest in a large pool umbrella, if you do this, don't buy one that comes with a glass table, they do get toppled, during dust storms, onto the cool deck or into the pool, and the resulting broken glass is not easily removed from the deck or from within the pool. Another shade solution is to build a gazebo nearby, or have a portion of the pool, covered by a patio overhang.

Another problem that occurs frequently is because of the great need of non-desert plants for water. If you plant this type of vegetation and water it often, as you must, or if you plant a lawn that comes right up to the the side of the pool and water the lawn properly, what you will cause to happen ultimately, is for the cool deck to break or chip away. Water will get under the cool deck, even if there is vapor barrier, and efflorescence will occur. As the water soaks the concrete it will ultimately evaporate from the concrete's surface causing minerals to wick up from the ground and from within the concrete. This will leave a white powdery substance, between the concrete surface and the coating of cool deck. This will break the bond between the concrete and cool deck. I am sure that you have seen this white powder on sidewalks around town, that is efflorescence. That is the same process that happens to your pool deck. So again stick with desert landscaping.

Also, try to avoid using crushed rock in the area around the pool. It always seems to get kicked in and usually jams up the automatic cleaner or gets sucked up through the main drain, and sneaks pass the pump strainer basket to plug the pump's impeller.

One last item here, there always has been and will always will be a struggle between the lawn service and the pool service people, the lawn service is seemly always determined to mow grass clippings into the pool, don't allow that to happen if you are a home owner that employs these businesses. The next post will cover Mother Nature's Directive concerning pools.