New River Privacy Screen
The palm trees came!
We got five new queen palms, two Mexican Fan palms, one pineapple palm, and a Yucca Glorificus (Buffy fans will like that last one : )
We had to get the new queen palms to hide the neighbor's yard full of
Looking through this row of queen palms, you can't see all of the stuff that our neighbors have spread out all over their lawn. The palms might look to be a bit short - they are actually about 20-25 feet tall, but we're losing 10-15 feet of that because it's hidden behind the edge of the pool structure.
This is the sort of thing that HOAs prevent - us having to put up a screen of trees - lots of money for lots of trees to cover up stuff that wouldn't be visible in a neighborhood protected by HOA C&Cs. Of course, in Anthem, the C&Cs would also keep us from putting up the palms, since they aren't native to Arizona. (An interesting note here - the Mexican Fan palms that we put up ARE native to the Sonoran Desert, but for some reason Anthem won't let folks plant them; that's an assumption that I'm making, since there are 25,000 homes in Anthem, and no palms trees visible anywhere. )
One might think that, as Circle Mountain gets more and more upscale, that C&Cs might get voted in. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Codes and Covenants are the kind of liberty limiting thing that doesn't bother me as long as it is part of the initial conditions of a neighborhood - in other words, "you knew it was like that when you moved here". But having C&Cs imposed after the fact seems like oppression of the minority by the majority; the neighbors moved to the Circle Mountain neighborhood while having junk in your yard was allowed. For other folks to move in after the fact and say "Okay, now you can't have junk" feels icky to me - it doesn't fit with my core values.
So I'll just be glad that we can put in palm trees. They add a nice tropical touch to the atmosphere, anyway - besides, the palm trees not only keep us from having to see their junk, they also keep my neighbors from having to see a 51 year old man in a Speedo.
'junk' partial visible on both sides of the Palms...LOL
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Yes, Rocco, it is. The intention of the palms was not to completely hide the Hooterville House, but just to interfere with the view such that the eye would not be drawn immediately to the junkyard.
Obviously, it didn't work : )
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I'm a big supporter of individual liberties and all that, except under certain aggravating circumstances. This includes neighbors who have cars up on blocks all over their property; rusted motorcycle parts on same; leave the garage door open all day to display their collection of fossil-fueled toys; keep aggressive, incessantly barking dogs; place their chicken coop and/or cockatiel enclosure at the very edge of their property so as to minimize their own exposure to the associated noise and smells; keep giant RV's, boats, and/or semi-trucks parked on the street in front of their house, or yours; shade their windows with tinfoil; or just act like trailer trash in general. In such cases a big pile of CC&R's are worth their weight in gold.
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You DO realize that you said "I'm a bit supporter of individual liberties and all that, except..." and then went on with a LONG list, and left the list open-ended with "just act like trailer trash in general", right? which means "anything I don't like", right? : )
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