Improve Your Home and Garden
From the category archives:
Hardy chrysanthemums are among the most popular and important garden flowers because of the long, colorful show they put on in late summer and fall. By choosing carefully from the hundreds of varieties, the gardener can have mums blooming from mid-August to heavy frost. They can be grown in containers if fed and watered carefully. [...]
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When my oldest son, Andy, was about three years old, I remember offering him the choice of one or two cookies for a snack. Being the clever and precocious child that he was, he said he wanted three cookies. I told him that wasn’t an option. As a grown man now–a healthy, slim adult, gratefully–he [...]
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September is a great time to work in your garden. Getting lawns and flower beds ready for winter will make for a beautiful garden in the spring. And the weather is usually cooperative as well. Here is a list of things to do in your backyard in September. Lawn Finish planting or reseeding lawns [...]
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Your home is your domain, and you want to be able to relax in and around your house. The weather is nice and you decide to barbecue or have coffee on the patio, only to find you are being eaten alive by mosquitos. Mosquitos are most active in the early evening and early morning. Mosquitos [...]
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Many people who have brought their first blooming orchid home from the garden shop secretly nurse a dream of having their very own greenhouse someday. They envision a greenhouse filled to the brim with beautiful, thriving orchids that provide countless hours of happiness on cold winter days. Greenhouses come in all sizes, shapes, elaborate and [...]
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Home improvement loans are borrowed funds used to repair, update, or remodel your house or property. Home improvement loans can take different forms—a home equity loan or line of credit is based on the equity you have earned on your home. Personal loans or personal lines of credit can also be secured specifically for home [...]
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Its late summer and your container garden is not looking very good. The summer heat has taken its toll and some of the plants have stopped flowering. You could pull all of the plants out and replant the entire flower pot or you can rejuvenate the container garden using only a few new plants and leaving [...]
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But before you go racing to the phone to call the lawyer on TV, know these facts! Like humans, animals can be victims of direct asbestos exposure or second-hand exposure when an individual who works around asbestos brings the toxic dust into their home on their clothes. In the 1970’s, a connection was found between [...]
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In this bumpy economy, many people have turned to home remodeling and improvements rather than moving. Combining the practicality of a greenhouse and the charm of a sunroom, home conservatories are becoming a popular choice for homeowners seeking to update and improve their living space. History of Conservatories Conservatories were born when northern European explorers [...]
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I was remodeling an old farm house in McMinnville, Oregon this weekend and the attic insulation rained down on me. I thought it looked a lot like the vermiculite we use in gardening but never heard of it being used as insulation. Six hours later I am writing this blog about the link between this [...]
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The largest sustainable lifestyle event in the Pacific Northwest returns for its fifth year to the Portland Expo Center. Find earth friendly products for you, your Northwest home & garden and your budget. From cutting edge solar technologies and eco-chic fashion to better energy efficiency for you home and sustainable outdoor living, if it’s green [...]
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Most of us feel better on a sunny day. But did you know that sunshine can be captured to save you money on your energy bill? Homeowners across the county are mounting solar panels on their homes to capture the sun’s rays and convert them into solar electricity. Sunlight Solar, based in Oregon, is a [...]
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Container Gardening Combinations for Flower Pots I love container gardening but the usual plant combinations seen in magazines do not interest me and make for boring flower pots…in my opinion. Sure, they are colorful, but they lack that personalized touch for which I look. Maybe it’s that plant pots with annuals seem like a waste. Maybe it’s [...]
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Looking for a way to make the upcoming holiday festivities more sustainable? Whether it’s a quiet family Christmas dinner at home or a big New Year’s Eve party, a new crop of organic wines will give you more reasons to celebrate. When you look at the health benefits of a glass of wine, it’s easy [...]
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Bluebirds across North America have declined at an alarming rate through the loss of their favorite winter food supply – the Winterberry (Ilex verticillata). Dan Hartmann, a horticulturist and nurseryman, who specializes in growing native North American plant species, explains that the principle cause of the Winterberry’s decline, and subsequently bluebird decline, is
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It was rather interesting to scan the garden catalogs last spring and notice the variety of plants that I think of as “out of the ordinary” plants. Of course, the unusual always attracts attention
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Creating a garden that attracts birds is a relatively simple task. It consists of supplying them with three basic elements: food, cover, and water. Most homeowners start with, and sometimes end with, putting out a bird feeder with cheap bird seed. Then they wonder why only a few species of birds show up, why the [...]
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In these economic times, every penny counts. As property values nosedive, how do you know if your property tax assessment is too high? A better question is, if your home is assessed too high, how do you get the assessment lowered? We just discovered a new service called Lower My Assessment that takes the guesswork [...]
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