Visit A Tropical Paradise -- In Your Own Backyard
By Sandra Nelson If a trip to the tropics isn’t in the plan this summer, why not create a tropical paradise in your own backyard? Using these 7 design tips from the experts, you can have the perfect place to relax and unwind. KEEP IT LUSH The idea of a lush …
Vegetable Gardening 101
By Sandra Nelson
With the days all seeming to melt together, it’s hard to realize that today is already May 7th. In another week or so it will be time to begin planting the bulk of my vegetable garden — the warm season plants like tomatoes and cucumbers and zucchini, and some seeds like …
Designing Beds That Delight
By Sandra Nelson I don’t know how you are handling stress these days, but I find myself drawn more and more to my yard. When I feel anxiety building, I stroll through the yard, stopping every few seconds to discover the changes from the day before and to soak in the calming power of …
Life-long Gardening -- Adaptations That Work
By Sandra Nelson While wandering around the Chicago Botanic Garden last summer, I stumbled upon (no pun intended) an area dedicated to Accessible Gardening — gardening for people with special needs or physical limitations. Feeling my aches and pains more and more every day, the prospect of discovering ways to make strenuous gardening tasks …
Set Your Sights On Spring
By Sandra Nelson To many in our part of the country, January and February (and sometimes March) are prime months for happily hibernating indoors. For those of us who are tried and true gardeners however, being out of the dirt and away from plants is akin to being held hostage by Mother Nature. In …
Design Your Perfect Pathway
My granddaughter and I were playing in the backyard the other day. One minute she was chasing me and laughing and the next she was frozen in one spot with huge tears streaming down her cheeks. I figured her brother had something to do with it (not unusual), but it turned out that I was …
Intimate Spaces in Large Places
Our eldest daughter is a textbook type A personality. She finds it difficult to just sit and relax because there is always another task to be completed. Her ability to keep going and going and going is truly amazing and somewhat exhausting. The other day, while she was at our home, she …
Enhance Your Outdoor Living -- Add a Pergola
Sprinkled in between this year’s bouts of torrential rain, we’ve had some absolutely glorious spring days — the kind where you can easily be outside all day long and well into the evening. Sadly though, with the arrival of June, I know that the temperatures will soon soar, the breeze will stop blowing and I …
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