Conifers are pruned all the time, for all sorts of reasons (bonsai being the most extreme). Check out some of Adrian Bloom's writing. Better yet, find an ACS member near you. We just held our annual meeting in Newark, and the Central Region has many, many members near you! Many people in the Society know how to prune and could give you some guidance and ideas (and we have really stepped up our demos of aesthetic pruning of late.) American Conifer Society (Oh and I think that you have a 'Sulphured' - congratulations! Pete Powell, it's from Arizona! It barely knows what water is... ;-)

This is easy to make this a colorful and cute focal point. Chili peppers and succulents are good together in pots or in the ground. You need a little height and some taller pots could provide shade for plants around it. Stack some bricks taller as a cute plant stand. Amend and level out the soil. Clean the rocks and arrange them in a curvy border partially on the turf. Place your pots first and plant your vegetables around them. Don't forget seasonal flowers..easy to change out.

We did about as you did around Page and it was plenty. There's the dam too if that interests you. While in the area, there, I highly recommend spending about the same amount of time at Monument Valley. It's but a few hours from Page. We liked it as much or better than most of the sights we saw during a national park trip that stretched from Death Valley to Bryce Canyon. We stayed at the View Hotel and took a jeep tour of the valley. It's stunning and also breath-taking in a sense one sees the poverty of the Navajo people whose homes dot the valley. The area has been the setting for numerous feature films, from John Ford /John Wayne Westerns to Forrest Gump. The rock pillars (maybe called buttes?) are stunningly beautiful. There's no alcohol served at The View (it's on Navajo land) so the second night we went over the wall and drove to Mexican Hat, UT. On the way one passes along the road used for the famous Forrest Gump scene. Many stopped cars along the road to snap a photo. When travelling around in the boondocks to see the natural sights of the West, don't expect 4 star hotels or memorable food. Clean rooms and food that doesn't give me food poisoning are the standards I use. Enjoy your trip.

Wow look at those burls-is there another tree species that throws out burls like this? I recall a large old cottonwood in my Grandma’s yard that had local woodworkers drooling.