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7 Tips for Growing an Herb Garden in Your Kitchen

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No matter the weather outside, Emily Dickinson (no relation to the poet!) can always add fresh-from-the-garden herbs to her home-cooked meals. If she wants a sprig of rosemary for spaghetti sauce or a bunch of basil for pesto, she simply snips just the right amount from her kitchen herb garden.

“I love to cook, so I grow herbs indoors,” says the architect who lives with her husband in a row house in Washington, DC. She grows tasty selections such as basil, rosemary, sage, mint, thyme, and chives on her kitchen windowsill.

“I like having the herbs in the kitchen, so I can easily throw them in while I’m cooking,” says Dickinson. “And since I’m typically cooking for two, I like the convenience of being able to harvest only what I need.”

If you want to enjoy a continuous supply of garden-fresh herbs in your own kitchen, keep these tips in mind.

1. Choose plants carefully. Opt for small-leaved herb varieties when possible, as they do the best indoors. In basil, for instance, you’ll find Fino verde, which has half-inch leaves. Some herbs naturally have small foliage, like oregano.

Buy established herb plants in the nursery or via mail-order, or grow your own from seeds or cuttings. Dickinson grows her basil year-round by periodically letting older plants go to seed and then scattering the seeds in the pot. To grow mint, she roots clippings.

Start herbs from seed in a soil-less potting mix in a warm location. Hasten germination and get the plants off to a good start by growing them on a seedling heat mat. Once the herbs reach two inches high, take them off the heat and repot them in regular potting soil.

2. Provide plenty of light. Most herbs grow best in a bright location, such as near an unobstructed southern window. Eastern and northern windows can also work, if you provide supplemental light from full-spectrum lighting. Western windows receive afternoon sun, but get warm and may burn foliage, especially in the summer months.

If your kitchen is windowless, grow herbs in a hydroponic growing system that comes with its own special lighting.

3. Ensure air-circulation and cool conditions. Herbs grown in stuffy, warm rooms attract pests like scale insects and mealybugs, and they grow weak and spindly.

“Herbs don’t like it warm in winter, even if you do, so place them in cool areas, such as on windowsills,” says Denise Schreiber, greenhouse manager for Allegheny County Parks in Pittsburgh and author of Eat Your Roses. “Air circulation is also necessary,” she says. “Locate the herbs near an overhead fan or in an area of the kitchen that receives air movement from another room.” Cracking windows open occasionally also helps.

4. Watch watering. Avoid overwatering your indoor herb garden or letting pots sit in trays of water, as soggy soil will quickly lead to root rot. Water when the first inch of soil dries out.

5. Rotate often. Leggy, weak growth is a common problem with indoor herbs. Help ensure they grow straight and strong by rotating the plants once a week so that all sides receive adequate light.

6. Fertilize monthly. Keep your herbs growing healthy and strong by feeding them on a regular basis with a half-strength solution of a well-balanced, liquid fertilizer, such as a 15-15-15.

7. Prune regularly. Fortunately for your cooking, herbs require frequent pinching for the plants to stay bushy and healthy, so make sure to prune often. The more you pinch, the more the herbs will grow, and the tastier your cooking will be.

Antiques at The Gardens show: Flowers, antiques and fine design for your inner … – The Birmingham News

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Renowned architect Bobby McAlpine will make an appearance at
next week’s Antiques at The Gardens show, but tickets for his lecture have
already sold out. Birmingham Botanical Gardens director Fred Spicer isn’t
surprised: He said the four-day celebration of refined artistry is shaping up
to be the biggest since the Gardens took over the event in 2005.

“The whole first floor and part of the second floor of the
Garden Center, our main building, is totally transformed,” Spicer said. “We’ve
created booths for antiques dealers we’ve selected from eight years. We have a
lot of returning fan favorites.”

In addition to the heirlooms and artifacts, this year’s show, which raises money for the Gardens’ educational programs, will the event will feature walk-in displays that show off the talents of
interior designers and architects around the state. Themes for the tastemakers (as the event calls them) include “Jewelry Box” and “Weeks to Africa.”

Birmingham interior designer Dana Wolter and architect Jeff
Dungan will spend early next week furnishing a 9’X5′ box with a cozy living
room feel – and several for-sale antiques – for a theme titled “Fireside Chats.”
Wolter said the show serves as a kind of convention for Birmingham’s artists,
designers and dealers.

“Everyone’s space will be a little bit different, but it
will be a reflection of who they are and what they like,” she explained. “I’m
excited to see everyone else’s creativity, forget my own. Just to see what
everyone else is going to do with their little auditorium space.”

The things you can actually take home include jewelry, furniture,
paintings, silver, prints, maps and books. Artifacts range from a bureau from
Victorian England to more affordable items, such as a tea set that costs, say,
a few hundred dollars instead of a few thousand. Not exactly a steal, but then
again, the show isn’t What’s on Second.

“These are fine
dealers; it’s certainly not a yard sale,” Spicer said. “You’re talking about
people who know the things that they have, who have selected them very, very
carefully, who know about the provenance of the pieces that they’re selling.”

And for those of us who sometimes go a whole day without
using the word “provenance?” Admission is just $10, and Spicer said anyone is
more than welcome to just browse, speak with dealers and designers and learn
about how the other half lived.

“It’s a quality antique show and sale and something that
Birmingham really doesn’t have except for this. There are wonderful antiques
dealers in Birmingham, but the kind of show and sale that we’re doing is unique
to Birmingham.”

And besides, he continued, plants and antiques just go
together.

“Buying an antique is kind of like the ultimate in
recycling. If it’s a beautiful wooden
desk, that tree was turned into a desk a hundred years ago, it’s not a new tree
that had to be cut down.”

Antiques at The Gardens will run October 3-6. Tickets are
$10 and parking is free. If you missed out on lecture tickets, you can still attend
a black-tie gala on Friday night for live music, refreshments and private
browsing of the sale.

James van Sweden Dies at 78; His Designs Urged Lawns to Grow

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The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, said Lisa Delplace, the chief executive of Oehme, van Sweden Associates, the firm Mr. van Sweden founded in 1977 with Wolfgang Oehme, a fellow landscape architect, to spread their gospel of a kinder, shaggier horticulture.

In books, lectures and an expansive oeuvre of gardens, the two men led a revolt against the staid American lawn, with its evergreen plantings cosseting the house, manicured grass stretching to the curb and few herbaceous flowering plants. Their alternative was to put shrubs like yews toward the street, where they could grow unclipped and provide privacy for an inner space crammed with surprises like fountains and fine ferns.

Other surprises — actually carefully concocted visual effects — came with the passage of time as the light changed, shadows grew and the seasons turned. Even changing winds were considered.

And the bigger the effect, the better, even if acreage was minimal. “You have to think big,” Mr. van Sweden told The Washington Post in 1998. “Think huge leaves, enormous grasses and flowers big as dinner plates. The worst thing you can do is be ditsy.”

The result was gardens that “move in the breeze and sparkle like stained glass,” Mr. van Sweden wrote in “Gardening With Nature” (1997). The designers called their vision “the new American garden.”

Mr. van Sweden immodestly called his collaboration with Mr. Oehme (pronounced EHR-ma) “a partnership of genius,” and plenty of prestigious clients agreed. Their work has graced embassies, universities and private homes, including Oprah Winfrey’s elegant French chateau-style country house near South Bend, Ind.

In Washington their work can be seen at the Treasury Building, the National Gallery of Art, the United States National Arboretum, the Federal Reserve building and the National World War II Memorial on the Mall. Ronald Reagan National Airport, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and Francis Scott Key Park in the Georgetown district also carry their signature.

In New York, they created pieces of Battery Park City and Hudson River Park. Their work extended to Minneapolis, Chicago and West Virginia.

The son of a builder, James Anthony van Sweden was born on Feb. 5, 1935, in the large Dutch community in Grand Rapids, Mich. He learned a sense of order from his mother, who hung laundry on her clothesline hierarchically from small to big, socks to sheets, The Post said.

He earned an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Michigan and did postgraduate work in city planning in the Netherlands. He then spent 13 years as an urban designer in Washington.

In 1957, his future collaborator, Mr. Oehme, came to Baltimore from East Germany as an already respected landscape architect. Mr. van Sweden was awe-struck when he saw a garden Mr. Oehme had designed.

“I had never seen such a beautiful garden in my life,” he wrote. “I knew right then that Wolfgang Oehme was somebody to grapple with, to be involved with.”

When Mr. van Sweden bought a row house in Washington’s Georgetown district in 1970, he asked Mr. Oehme’s help in creating a garden for his narrow backyard. The result was an unusual mix of huge ornamental grasses, magnolia, holly, Japanese snowball and witch hazel. Mr. van Sweden thought others might appreciate a similar amenity, and he proposed that the two men set up a firm. Their partnership began in 1977.

In a memorial to Mr. van Sweden on its Web site, the Cultural Landscape Foundation praised him and his partner for their environmentally benign approach: they eschewed pesticides and favored perennials. It lauded their fecundity: they planted flowers and bushes not by threes and fours but by the thousands. It called Mr. van Sweden’s sensibility “painterly,” and indeed he claimed inspiration from masters like Johannes Vermeer and Willem de Kooning.

In its online appreciation, Landscape Architecture magazine said “legions of designers and home gardeners embraced the firm’s style.”

Many learned the details of that style from Mr. van Sweden’s books, including “Gardening With Water” (1995); “Bold Romantic Gardens” (1990), written with Mr. Oehme and Susan Rademacher; and “Architecture in the Garden” (2003), written with Thomas Christopher.

That latter book discusses the garden’s surroundings and interior elements like paths, edgings and artwork, areas in which Mr. van Sweden specialized. Mr. Oehme took the lead in horticultural matters.

Mr. Oehme died in 2011. Mr. van Sweden’s marriage to Linda Nordyke ended in divorce. He is survived by his sisters, Karyl Mangus and Christie Kauffman.

In “Architecture in the Garden,” Mr. van Sweden recalled the problem he perceived when Ms. Winfrey commissioned him, for a reported $9 million, to improve the grounds around her country home in Indiana: nothing separated it from the surrounding farmland.

“Over the next four years, we worked together to create an architectural context around the house, including newly installed terraces and walls,” he wrote. “The materials we selected, brick framed with limestone, echoed the house, yet this architecture also conformed to the surrounding countryside, adopting its long, horizontal lines. In this way, we quite literally pulled the house out into the site.”

Dog area and skateboard park top ideas for waterfront land

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WENATCHEE — An off-leash dog area and a skateboard/BMX track emerged as the top ideas for a new waterfront park at a meeting earlier this week.

About 35 people attended a city open house on Tuesday to gather ideas on how to develop about five acres on either side of the Pipeline Bridge along Wenatchee’s riverfront.

The land was donated earlier this year by the Hale family.

The city parks board hopes to have a final design for the park by November. The city would like to start applying for grant funding early next year and build the park in 2016.

During the brainstorming meeting at City Hall, a dog park got 14 votes, followed closely by 12 votes for a skateboard/BMX park.

Ideas getting fewer but multiple votes included a waterfront trail connection to South Wenatchee neighborhoods, restrooms, a stage and live-music venue, splash pad, trees and landscaping, playground equipment, picnic areas, basketball courts, community gardens, fishing access and miniature golf.

Suggestions that got just one vote each included a recreation center, water slides, fountains, fishing pond, go-cart track and tennis courts.

The city will continue to accept ideas for the park’s development until Oct. 16. They can be submitted to parks director Dave Erickson at daerickson@wenatcheewa.gov.

Reach Russ Hemphill at 509-665-1161 or (javascript required to see email). Follow him on Twitter at @Worldcityeditor.

City Council candidate has millions in Park City real estate holdings

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The commercial properties in the Iron Horse district, sitting along streets like Iron Horse Drive, have never held the same pizzazz as places on Main Street or at the mountain resorts.

There are some shops and a restaurant, but the district has long been seen as being one of Park City’s more utilitarian areas. The properties, though, taken together, represent one of the most valuable blocs of real estate under single ownership in Park City.

The owner is a firm called Wintzer-Wolfe Properties, and one of the key figures is Mary Wintzer. She is now seeking a spot on the Park City Council, campaigning on a diverse platform that includes maintaining the ambiance that brought Parkites to Park City.

There have only been sporadic mentions of Wintzer’s real estate holdings since the campaign started last summer. It is highly unusual, though, for a City Council candidate to have such expansive interests inside Park City.

The firm in 2012 held properties with a combined taxable assessed value of a little more than $14.3 million, according to a report City Hall released earlier in the year detailing the top property-tax payers in Park City. Wintzer-Wolfe Properties ranked No. 9 on the list, accounting for .22 percent of the overall taxable assessed value in Park City.

The City Hall report shows the Wintzer-Wolfe Properties holdings performed well over the past 10 years. The value rose from a little more than $10.4 million in 2003, at the time .32 percent of the overall taxable assessed value. The taxable assessed value increased 37.8 percent over the period between 2003 and 2012.

According to Wintzer, the firm’s holdings are spread over 22 commercial spaces in the Iron Horse district as well as three apartments that are rented at below market rates. A mini-storage facility is also under the umbrella of Wintzer-Wolfe Properties. The firm owns approximately 120,000 square feet of leasable space between the properties. Wintzer said another upward of 300,000 square feet could be built without the ownership needing to seek an involved City Hall approval known as a master planned development.

Wintzer and her husband, Park City Planning Commissioner Charlie Wintzer, have a 50 percent stake in Wintzer-Wolfe Properties, she said, meaning that the couple’s share of the properties would be valued at a little more than $7.1 million. The Wintzers are the general partners, meaning they oversee the day-to-day operations of the properties.

Wintzer said in an interview the couple has had an ownership stake for 30 years and built the commercial buildings over 20 years starting in the mid-1980s. Wintzer said the firm does not presently plan to further develop the eight acres of land.

“It’s been built out to our satisfaction,” Wintzer said.

She said Wintzer-Wolfe Properties could make improvements to the buildings now standing as well as further landscaping the property.

The Iron Horse district houses a diverse list of businesses, including a restaurant, an automotive shop, a guitar store and a commercial laundry operation. It has long been a popular place for businesses seeking lower rents than those paid along Main Street. The buildings have appeared to have solid tenant interest over the years.

The Wintzer-Wolfe Properties holdings sit close to some of the land under the control of Mark J. Fischer, the lead Bonanza Park developer. Fischer has ambitious ideas to remake his patchwork of properties into a hip new area of residences, retailers and restaurants. He has been in talks with City Hall since prior to the recession about Bonanza Park, and it seems that the major redevelopment of his properties would not start for at least a few years.

There are ongoing discussions, broad in nature, about the sorts of development that will be allowed in Bonanza Park in the likely scenario of City Hall redoing the rules in that area. The Wintzer-Wolfe Properties holdings would be subject to the redone rules. The Bonanza Park developer, not Wintzer-Wolfe Properties, has lobbied for changes. Wintzer has been critical of some of the ideas for Bonanza Park. She would almost certainly be prohibited from participating in the discussions or casting a vote based on City Hall’s conflict-of-interest rules if she was elected.

“It’s on record that as a citizen and as a property owner I have spoken out for lesser development” in Bonanza Park she said, noting that she is concerned about the height of buildings in the Iron Horse district and Bonanza Park.

She acknowledges that changes in City Hall’s development rules sought for Bonanza Park would apply to the Wintzer-Wolfe Properties holdings as well. If Wintzer-Wolfe Properties sells the holdings, the new owner would be able to pursue development under the redone rules. Wintzer said her family’s stake in the firm is not on the market and the family has no plans to sell its 50 percent.

“This has been my career as a small business owner for the last 25 years, developing the shopping district,” she said.

Council to hear landscaping plan for MacCorkle Avenue – Daily Mail

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A median with trees and green space, improved pedestrian crossings and parallel parking could all one day become reality on MacCorkle Avenue in Kanawha City, under a local consulting firm’s plan.

In addition, 50th Street could resemble more of a park setting with the addition of a “green spine” consisting of trees and landscaped space.

The plan, dubbed the “Kanawha City Corridor Study,” was commissioned by the city of Charleston and was first publicly presented at the annual Kanawha City Community Association meeting Thursday night.

Charleston-based GAI Consultants created the plan based on a year’s work of research, said David Gilmore, a land development services manager with GAI. GAI is the same consulting firm that developed a recently released plan to put bicycle lanes along Kanawha Boulevard West and assisted with Imagine Charleston.

For now, the plan is just that – a plan.

None of the ideas proposed are funded, Charleston Planning Director Dan Vriendt said. But, the plan will go before city council for approval, and if it passes, it can be used to apply for federal and state grants for the next decade or two.

“We can’t make an application unless we have a plan,” he said.

The MacCorkle Avenue and 50th Street improvements are all possible without the city obtaining any additional land.

Gilmore said the city-owned rights-of-way in Kanawha City are huge – 80 feet for Mac-Corkle Avenue and 100 feet for 50th Street. That means the city has great flexibility when considering improvements.

“It really frees us up to do a lot of interesting things,” Gilmore said.

Historically, he said, Kanawha City was planned around pedestrians and slow-moving vehicles – not modern automobiles.

Once use of the automobile became mainstream, the consultants said, MacCorkle Avenue became one of the main thoroughfares into Charleston from the south before the interstate system. That traffic load caused the neighborhood to lose some of the walkability it had originally.

“Those ideals are still there, they just need to be resurfaced,” Gilmore said.

The plan also divides Kanawha City into districts, beginning with the Medical District around CAMC General Hospital on the northern end of the neighborhood. The districts then transition into the “Village District,” the “Professional District,” “Main Street” (50th Street) and the “Retail District,” which includes much of the large retail stores at the southern end of the neighborhood.

Gilmore said each district could have its own vibe and unique decor, if that’s what the city decides. There could also be different changes to MacCorkle Avenue depending on the district.

For example, parallel parking and formal parking lots – all in areas the city already owns – could be added along parts of MacCorkle with a higher density of shops or restaurants. In other areas, MacCorkle Avenue could remain the same as it is now.

Residents present at the meeting were largely supportive of the plan, but wanted to make sure other problems – like parking – would be created by the plan.

“We’re not trying – and we don’t want to – push traffic into those neighborhoods,” Gilmore said of areas east and west of MacCorkle.

Gilmore said the plan will soon be available online at the city’s website for public review. In order to become an official development plan for the city, the plan will have to be introduced in city council, pass one or more city council committees and then be brought back to council for final approval.

/From Gardens Installed to New Hardscape, call Londrigan Landscaping for the … – Glens Falls Post

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From gardens installed to new hardscape, we offer everything you could ever need to maintain develop a perfect landscape. And with over 20 years of experience and skilled craftsmanship, we can guarantee you will be very happy with your results.

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GARDEN, Atlanta’s Boutique Landscape Firm, Says Gardens are Moving Inside

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GARDEN,
Atlanta’s go-to destination for all things urban landscaping
and southern flora, is launching GARDEN terrarium kits so people can
easily add green to the inside of their homes. While Matthew Klyn,
GARDEN’s founder and owner, has designed some of the city’s most
appealing outdoor landscapes, the GARDEN terrarium kits
mark a move to empower anyone to build and maintain their own small
ecosystem indoors.

“The
idea behind the terrarium kits was all about making growing something
beautiful accessible to everyone, even inside their homes,” said Klyn.
“So we needed to develop
the best way to package and ship them so that you could literally pick
one off the shelf and build yourself a self-sustaining tiny ecosystem
that thrives on neglect.”

The
kit features everything needed to cultivate your own terrarium: a 100%
recycled glass terrarium, available in 8-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch
sizes, along with charcoal,
orchid mix, terrarium soil, moss, gravel, stones, decorative accents
and building and care instructions.

Once
you’ve established your terrarium, you can adorn it with additional
plant kits including mini orchids, greens, Tillandsia and succulents.
The GARDEN team hand selects
all plants seasonally. All plants can be purchased in-store or at
gardenterrariumkits.com.

The GARDEN terrarium kits are available in-store at GARDEN, located in West Midtown. Additional retailers can be found on
gardenterrariumkits.com.

About GARDEN

GARDEN
is Atlanta’s boutique landscape and garden design firm and retail store
known for using modern aesthetics to elevate urban design.

Founded
on sustainable, green principles, GARDEN offers a complete range of
services, from design and consultation to full-scale installation. Each
GARDEN design is a thoughtful
creation incorporating the client’s personal style into an organic
extension of the natural environment. Calling upon its deep knowledge of
native flora, soil biochemistry, and horticulture, GARDEN provides
long-lasting design solutions that require light
maintenance, from exotic and unusual to modern and artistic landscapes.

GARDEN’s
west-side retail store offers a wide selection of signature terrariums,
striking floral arrangements, container gardens, and elegant scents and
oils. GARDEN also
houses a seasonal collection of home-ready accessories handpicked for
the discerning shopper.

The Reynolds Group contributed this article to Midtown Patch

The Mountain Gardener: Tips and tricks to keep wine grapes safe – San Lorenzo Valley Press

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slideshow

Prune orchards once reigned supreme in the Napa Valley. Pears, walnuts and fodder for grazing sheep were also grown where now 45,000 acres of premium wine grapes flourish.

The crush is on in Napa County. Mostly cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay and merlot are being harvested at night, but back in 1928 the prune crop was worth twice as much as wine grapes.

We all have an insect or two that we have to deal with in our gardens. I found out on a recent excursion to Napa Valley that all those acres of grape vines could possibly be lost if the European grape moth has its way. Believed to have been imported in vegetables from Europe, it was first detected in Napa County in 2009. Back in 2011 Santa Cruz County was dealing with the same pest. With quarantine efforts and eradication of fruits and flowers near the area where they were first detected, our county hasn’t had much of a problem with them since.

Integrated pest management is the ecologically sound approach to pest control. In Napa County, I learned that the European grape moth is being well-controlled in recent years by organic sprays such as spinosad and Bacillus thuringiensis, more commonly known as BT. Another very effective control method used is mating disruption with pheromones.

These techniques might not be as picturesque as planting roses around a grape orchard as an early warning system for fungal diseases, but they have worked for the grape moth. Roses are traditionally planted at the perimeter of vineyards because both they and grape vines are prone to powdery mildew and Downy mildew in our Mediterranean-type climate. If powdery mildew appears on the roses, the vineyard can be sprayed with sulfur. Although sulfur does not cure powdery mildew, it will prevent it.

Downy mildew is another deadly mildew that attacks the green parts of the grape vine. Once Downy mildew is detected on the rose bushes, the grape vines can be immediately sprayed with a solution of copper sulphate and lime.

Many of the vineyards also plant lavender and rosemary to repel many harmful insects, provide habitat for beneficial insects preying on undesirable insects and add a pleasant flavor to the wine.

Sitting outside on a tasting room patio planted with beautiful flowering shrubs and perennials, it’s hard to imagine the delicious wine in your glass doesn’t come effortlessly on the part of the winery. Like our area that grows pinot noir grapes exceptionally well, the terroir of the Napa valley is expressed in the flavor of its wine. The qualities of the soil, geography and climate all contribute.

A vast array of soils of volcanic and marine origin coexist in Napa Valley. Half of the world’s soil orders occur here with more than 100 soil variations all affecting the character of the grapes. Soils guide the grape-grower as to which rootstock and grape varieties to plant. Valley floor soils tend to be deeper and more fertile and produce vigorous growth, so the crop must be tightly managed to produce concentrated grapes. On the hillsides, the vine has to struggle to survive the spare, rocky soils and naturally sets a smaller crop, producing smaller grapes of highly concentrated color and flavors.

Walking among the vines, I noted drip irrigation in use. I found out that traditionally Old World wine regions consider natural rainfall the only source of water that will still allow the vineyard to maintain its terroir characteristics. Spain has recently loosened the regulations of the European Union Wine Laws and France has been reviewing the issue.

Grapes depend on a certain amount of water mainly in the spring and summer, and so, here in California and other summer dry regions of the world like Australia, the vines are irrigated starting in May or June. It’s a fine line to determine how much and how often to irrigate to preserve the flavor of the grape and not just grow lush plants with high yields.

In our own gardens, we can train a plant to put down deep roots, decreasing the amount of watering it needs. So it is in grape growing where the vine receives sufficient water during budding and flowering, but irrigation is then scaled back during the ripening period so that the vine funnels more of its limited resources into developing grape clusters.

I enjoyed the gardens of the Napa Valley as much as the wine tasting. White Japanese anemone, pink sasanqua camellia and oakleaf hydrangea are all blooming. The dogwood trees are budded for next year’s show and the Japanese maples are starting to color.

It’s interesting to know that one grape vine produces about four to six bottles of wine per year and in 1968 the nation’s first Agriculture Preserve was established to protect open space and prevent future over-development.

– Jan Nelson, a landscape designer and California certified nursery professional, will answer questions about gardening in the Santa Cruz Mountains. E-mail her at janis001@aol.com, or visit www.jannelsonlandscapedesign.com to view past columns and pictures.