June 2002

From the editor

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Plan-a-Garden

Healthy Eating Slide Shows

Relaxation Zone

Light & Luscious

Chill Out

If you're having a heat wave and need a cold-snap solution for chilling your favorite summer beverage, check out the garden shop, produce section, or even the garage for clever containers. You'll find that cold comfort can be a good thing.

Puttering Sheds

It's green thumbs up for families who help their gardens grow with multifunctional structures that are anything but mainstream.

Plans for Puttering Sheds

An At-Home Getaway

When Patti and Doug Barber step into their sunroom, they feel like they're slipping away to a cabin on the lake.

Skylight Pergola

How to Make Fences That Flower

If you think two-dimensionally, you can train a tree to make an ornamental screen, produce more fruit, and take up less space. The trick is in the trimming: Just remove branches fore and aft so that the tree grows out only side to side. What you have created then is a flat tree-- or more mellifluously, an espalier.

Mix-and-Match Hostas

Do-It-Yourself Planter

Summer stuff you gotta have

Welcome to summer, where the living is easy, breezy, and chock-full of great gear. From food to water to garden gadgets-- take you pick and have some fun.

Slip Into Summer Whites

Summer's crisp white blossoms bring simple elegance to outdoor table settings. Gathered from the garden or plucked from florists' stock, these easy, artful arrangements speak volumes using one type of flower and the quietest of containers. To complete the look, add just enough water to cover the stems.

Gardening in the Round

"If I Only Had a View"

No-Mess Media Storage

Incorporating a home entertainment system into a neat-and-tidy decorating scheme requires planning-- especially since along with it comes all the assorted paraphernalia, such as videotapes and CDs. And when the media room happens to be in the middle of the home and in view of every guest who enters, keeping the mess at bay is even more critical.

Floor shows

Brighten a dull porch floor, add interest to gray decking, and give a cement patio exotic flavor. These decorative treatments use paints and stains made to withstand the elements.

Shelves

For many of us, what used to be display space has, over time, turned into a convenient spot for stashing stuff before dashing off again. If your cluttered shelves are spilling over, these shelf-help tips can bring them back into focus.

Making a Redo Better Than Original

Memory has a way of improving on reality. This feeling of nostalgia is what inspired the remodeling of Wilma and Bill Peterson's classic upstairs guest bath. By using period- style materials and detailing-- and a lot of it-- the result looks just like we might imagine the 1930s original to have been.

GET aeria

Skateboarding is flying high as an American pastime. Now mainstream, it's the choice sport for many families.

Spare and Spacious

The Deaf Dalmatian Felix

If Felix the dalmatian could use his paws for sign language, he would say, "Thank you, Stephanie." Since he can't, the deaf dog communicates with the hug of his body next to hers and his rapt focus on her face. They tell Stephanie Foust, his trainer and companion, just how much he loves her.

Baby, You Can Drive My Mini

Ask the average American to use the word "mini" in a sentence and you'll likely hear about short skirts and the swinging Sixties.

Our home 2002 improvement contest

There's no better time to give your home a fresh new look. Whether you're redecorating a bedroom or starting a major remodeling job, your home improvement project may win a top award. Plus, your home could be featured in Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Outdoor Learning

Pack your family's bags, grab a map, and head out for a summer of educational fun.

Long journey home

With mixed feelings, the families of the Frontier House experiment return to the 21st century, a whole lot thinner ad a good bit wiser.

Waterfront Wonderland

Sun, sand, and surf are great on bare feet but, far too often, death for plants. "You have to pick plants that don't mind salt spray and that tolerate the wind," says Dione Hayes, who gardens with husband David on Boston Harbor in Olympia, Washington.

Tea Cozy

With its diminutive architecture dating back to 1915, Marty and Dan Gilbert's lovingly restored teahouse stands like an open invitation to sit for a spell and share a cup.

A Phlox That Rocks

Some advice from a pro

Tom Vetter is a plumber with a degree in landscaping. With two professions to choose from, he decided he'd rather play in his garden than, well, work in someone else's. But it might be worth clogging your pipes to get him over to your house and talk gardening with him.

All-stars from outside the office window

We'll plant-- and evaluate-- just about anything in the Test Garden that strikes our fancy. Sometimes monitoring new or tried-and-true plants results in a success story. And sometimes... well, some things are better left unsaid. Here are some curiosities that developed into showstoppers as the season progressed last year. Sandra Gerdes, our Test Garden manager, was especially impressed by a canna that has black swirls on its green foliage and both red and yellow flowers.

Secret Garden

A small, barren, fence-bound suburban yard was transformed into a delightful garden room with a magical quality: The more the gardeners added, the more livable and restful it became.

No More Ho-Hum Hostas

A photographer landscapes his shady garden with hostas, some as colorful as flowers, as big as bushes, or as bright as beacons.

Formal in front

Where weekends rule

Break away to a place where family time is laid-back and surfing still involves ocean waves instead of the Web.

Backdoor escapes

No matter its measure or magnificence, what nature has brought to your steps can be an open invitation to gracious outdoor living.

CHECK THE TEMP

Cocktail cool

Grab a jigger and a shaker-- here are the latest libations from the cocktail circuit. Whether you're sipping to the latest in lounge music CDs or hitting the hammock with glass in hand, relax. It's summer, and the livin' is easy.

The ABC's of Sun care

Most sun damage occurs in the first 18 years of life. Research shows that keeping your kids safe from harmful rays today may help prevent skin cancer, excessive wrinkling, and cataracts decades from now.

On-the-road tips

Headed out of town this summer? Take steps to stay healthy, and you'll love every minute of your trip. Carry all family members' medications in their original containers, along with pertinent medical information about anyone in your group with health problems.

Get physical

Look who's talking

Hooked on Body Art

Buzzz

UV-Smart

5 from your kitchen

Take 5 at the very least

5 new products

"Get naked" is an appropriate motto for the smoothies and fresh fruit and veggie juices squeezed into take-along bottles by Naked Food-Juice company. Tangerine Scream is just that: tangerine juice. Nothing more. Guzzle down a serving and you've more than satisfied your daily vitamin C requirement. Very Berry is raspberry and blackberry purees mixed with apple juice, orange juice, banana puree, and water. Other flavors available. $2.50 to $3 for 15 ounces.

Pool Safety

The majority of kids drown when they fall into a backyard pool. Most other cases happen after adult supervision breaks down.

The great outdoors

Get back to basics this summer by going on a family camping adventure. Parents and kids alike will enjoy the sounds of a crackling campfire at dusk and of birds calling as the sun rises.

The Shopper's Mart

The family next door