Home and Garden

Respecting the rake

How to pick the right tools and techniques

You could be called the lawn Luddites. You’re the holdouts who shun leaf blowers and lawn vacuums, the hardy types who find satisfaction in the scrape of tines on grass.

Tame the holiday chaos with these organizing tips

The holidays typically send most families into high-stress mode. But before you start panicking, “The No. 1 thing is put the pressure on paper,” says Deniece Schofield, a home management expert and author of several books on organization, including “Confessions of a Happily Organized Family.” “Make sure everything is written down, because if it’s in your head, it’s stressful,” she said. To keep stress to a minimum and stay on task, Schofield recommends starting a notebook and making lists to keep yourself organized and save time. The real key is to get your planning under way ASAP.

Artwork inspires condo decor

ORLANDO — A lifetime’s accumulation of furnishings, pictures and photographs greeted Troy Beasley and his design team when they arrived to redecorate a luxury condominium in Winter Park, Fla., recently. Many of the posters, paintings and photos reflected the homeowners’ ties to the theater and ballet. Other pictures and artifacts were collected during their worldwide travels. All had been randomly displayed throughout the condo.

How often do you need to clean dusty ducts?

Q: How dirty do heating ducts get in a year? Is it necessary to clean them yearly as my wife insists? A: They don’t get very dirty year to year in most homes. Regular duct cleaning isn’t necessary. However, don’t confuse duct cleaning with furnace check and tune-up. That should be done regularly, preferably every year.

Houseplants are gifts that keep on living

Giving a plant gift is a way to cheer up a friend’s house for years to come. In the 1890s, houseplants were the rage in America, and then they became the obsessive hobby of little old ladies who most likely propagated the plants from starts in the 19th century. In the mid-1970s, houseplants again became a fad.

Plenty for a harvest centerpiece

Mix it up for a bountiful display

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A traditional cornucopia, overflowing with the fruits and flowers of a bountiful harvest, is a classic centerpiece to grace your Thanksgiving table or sideboard. And the best thing about creating one is that you might already have a supply of greenery and goodies to fill this horn of plenty. Look in your garden for herbs, colorful leaves and branches; in your refrigerator for fruits and vegetables; and in your attic for ribbons and saved treasures to personalize your arrangement.

Thanksgiving countdown

With Thanksgiving just a few weeks away, now is the time to start planning! BHG.com, the online companion to Better Home and Gardens magazine, offers this helpful checklist for planning a stress-free holiday.

Lighter, cheaper, LED light bulbs on the horizon

A good idea, but not working to potential

Just when you were finally warming up to the idea of swapping out your old light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones, you may soon find a new alternative at your local hardware store. Retailers are starting to carry bulbs built around light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. These bulbs promise to last longer and use less energy than even compact fluorescents (CFLs), which already are much longer-lived and power-efficient than standard incandescent bulbs.

Don’t miss your chance to become a Master Gardener

Master Gardeners are looking for a few good men —and women — for our once-a-year training program beginning January 12. If you have an interest in gardening, want to make a difference in the community and be a responsible steward of our environment, then you may be a perfect candidate, says Jennifer Marquis, WSU Chelan Master Gardener coordinator.

Hip hearths: Not the same old flame

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Since we were cave dwellers, the hearth has been the heart of the home. Over time, fireplaces naturally became the focal point in the family room, dressed up with elaborate moldings and ornamental mantels. But designers are seeing fireplaces return to basics, where the fire itself is the star of the show. Behold the modern fireplace.

In the Garden: Warming up to cold frames

Extend the garden season with a mini-greenhouse

Cold frames can provide protection from our region’s fall and winter cold spells. Prolonged cold can freeze the ground solid, encourage vermin to invade your best-laid mulches and create an ideal environment for diseases to develop. By covering or growing your winter crops within a cold frame, you can also extend your garden-growing season.

These days, do we need the Old Farmer’s Almanac?

Here are three words you might expect to cause instant seizure with an Internet search engine: Old. Farmer’s. Almanac. And yet, those canny New England Yankees who publish the annual Old Farmer’s Almanac have just put out No. 218 in seeming blithe indifference to the seismic shifts that have rocked traditional print media in the digital age.

Experts tell how to create funky decor out of secondhand items

WASHINGTON — DIY decorating once was simple: Pick a style (modern, shabby chic, country craft), acquire its key accoutrements (chrome accents, weathered finishes, “Little House on the Prairie” ginghams), repeat until complete. But now savvy nesters no longer want to be defined by one look. Instead, they’re fusing high and low, old and new, classic and oddball for an effect that’s both chic and cheeky. The trick to this aesthetic is a healthy collection of vintage pieces repurposed in unexpected ways, such as an old classroom map hung as artwork or laboratory beakers used as flower vases. We consulted four experts to learn the secrets to nabbing secondhand scores at a flea market, at a thrift store and online.

The sweet potato explosion

I have grown “Margarita” (Ipomoea batatas), the chartreuse-leaved sweet potato vine, for several summers. It makes a gorgeous contrast with purple plants like Persian Shield (Strobilanthus), and many other colorful annuals. In fact, the most spectacular spot in my garden is a stone wall above my driveway along which I plant a combination of Wave petunias, trailing verbena and sweet potato vine.

Only you — and goats — can prevent forest fires

I heard that goats are being used to prevent some of those catastrophic fires that seem to happen increasingly. What’s the story with that? — Ali B., New Canaan, Conn. A: As wildfires consumed parts of California larger than some smaller states, everyone was talking about how we can prevent such disasters from getting going in the first place. One novel approach is to enlist goats. Not as firefighters — although their surefootedness and determination would probably serve them well in such situations — but as grazers to keep the forest underbrush clear of the tinder-like grasses, bushes and small trees that allow flames to jump to the higher forest canopy and get further spread by the wind.