It starts with clear explanations of the concepts and fundamentals of green, healthy and energy-efficient construction and walks the reader through the entire construction process, injecting expert advice at every decision point. Construction techniques, materials, and products are thoroughly explained, making the often vaguely understood concepts cleanly understandable. The book gives builders and architects the tools to respond to growing requests from homeowners for green and energy-efficient houses, whether new or remodeled. Homeowners can use the book to understand the concepts, process, and options, whether they're doing it themselves or working with a professional.

    Are heirloom vegetables more difficult to grow than conventional hybrids? The Beginner's Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables debunks this myth by highlighting the 100 heirloom vegetables that are the easiest to grow and the tastiest to eat.Marie Iannotti makes it simple for beginning gardeners to jump on the heirloom trend by presenting an edited list based on years of gardening trial and error. Her plant criteria is threefold: The 100 plants must be amazing to eat, bring something unique to the table, and—most importantly—they have to be unfussy and easy to grow. Her list includes garden favorites like the meaty and mellow 'Lacinato' Kale, the underused and earthy 'Turkish Orange' Eggplant, and the unexpected sweetness of 'Apollo' Arugula.

    An internationally renowned herbalist, teacher, and certified organic grower, Hartung has filled this indispensable reference with a wide range of information gathered from her 30 years of studying and working hands-on with these amazing plants. Homegrown Herbs is a step-by-step primer for gardeners of every level. It includes in-depth profiles of 101 cultivars, including information on seed selection, planting, maintenance and care, harvesting, drying, and uses in the kitchen, home pharmacy, crafting, and body care. Hartung supports these profiles with an array of herb garden designs, illustrations, and at-a-glance charts. Sensational four-color photographs by Saxon Holt bring the information to life, and an introduction by renowned herbalist Rosemary Gladstar highlights the importance of the book to both individuals and the planet as a whole. Packed with valuable information, Homegrown Herbs is much more than an encyclopedia of herbs—Hartung shares her passionate and compelling vision for a world that is filled with greater abundance, pleasure, joy, and compassion. With Hartung as a guide, readers will find that growing herbs is more than simply a practical act; it is also an inspired one that brings beauty, flavor, and healing to the everyday... and to the world at large.

    DIY Succulents shows you how to use beautiful and resilient plants like echeveria, sedum, and graptopetalum to craft nature-inspired home decor like rustic tabletop centerpieces and breathtaking wall art. Each page offers details on selecting the right plants and containers for the project, assembling a gorgeous arrangement, and maintaining the garden as it grows. With step-by-step instructions, gardening tips, and dozens of ideas to choose from, anyone can create imaginative succulent crafts like:Living WreathBirch Log PlanterTerrarium NecklaceTopiary BallComplete with photos and plenty of inspiration, DIY Succulents will help you add creativity, color, and personality to every room in your home.

    Let's face it: most of us have the confidence to improve the inside of our homes with a fresh coat of paint, new rugs, furniture, and fixtures. But when it comes to the outside of our most prized possession, we don't know where to start. That's where Julie Moir Messervy's Home Outside comes in. The acclaimed landscape designer walks the reader through the process of turning any property into the home outside you've always dreamed of. Focusing on key concepts like Finding Your Comfort Zone and Placing the Pieces, Messervy presents breathtaking plans for remarkable front and back lawns, entertainment areas, and contemplative retreats, as well as innovative ways to create a better flow between the inside and outside of a house.

    You’ll discover that container gardening is an easy and fun way to enjoy summer’s bounty in even the smallest of growing spaces.

    Frey distills the vital lessons gardening into 100 simple rules that, if followed, will yield a gorgeous, healthy, and thriving home garden. New home gardeners will discover tips on garden design, care and maintenance, healthy soil, and the best ways to water. They’ll learn how to create a garden that encourages birds and butterflies, how to how to choose healthy plants at the garden center, how and when to re-pot a container, and much more. With bite-size chunks of expert information and nearly 100 inspiring photographs, Ground Rules packs a lot of value into its playful package and will be a go-to resource for gardeners everywhere.

    For those who want to join the "hive" of keepers, Ashley English has the lowdown on the key issues, from space and time considerations to local ordinances to the basics of acquiring, housing, maintaining, and caring for bees year round. Plus, get 10 tested honey-centric recipes!

    Choosing perennials that look great and grow well together is a skill that can take years to develop, but with this book, you're guaranteed to make perfect plant choices right from the start. In Perennial Combinations, expert plantsman, C. Colston Burrell hand-selects 120 of the best perennial combinations for homeowners, then offers his expert advice on how to grow and use the combinations to create great gardens.Each combination is featured in a stunning color photograph accompanied by a numbered photo key and plant list, so it's easy to find and buy exactly the right plants to re-create the combination in your own garden. Each combination features just two to six plants, so they're perfect for even the smallest garden space. You can plant each combination just as it appears in the book, or for a bigger color splash, just repeat the combination or mix it with others that are suited to the same conditions. You'll find combinations for stunning bloom from spring through fall; combinations especially suited to challenging sites like heavy clay soil or seaside gardens; and combinations just for fun, like fragrant combinations and combinations that attract butterflies.C. Colston Burrell has lived and gardened in different climates across America, so he's made sure this book is useful to gardeners from California to Maine. He's also a professional garden designer, and he's applied his talents to create 22 original garden designs that feature the book's individual combinations. Plus every page includes his personal gardening wisdom, so you'll not only know which perennials to plant together, you'll know how to maintain those perennials so your garden will look beautiful year after year.

    Their life had hit rock bottom, and it was only after a touching act of charity that they were able to get on their feet again.Inspired by this gesture of kindness as well as the beloved Little House on the Prairie books, Merissa found that a life of self-sufficiency and simplicity could be charming and blissful. She set out to live an entirely made-from-scratch life, the “Little House” way, and as a result, she slashed her household budget by nearly half—saving thousands of dollars a year. She started to write about homesteading, homemaking, and cooking from scratch, and over the next few years developed the recipes and DIY projects that would one day become part of her now beloved website, LittleHouseLiving.com.As whole foods became staples of the family diet, Merissa realized the dangers of putting overly processed ingredients not only into our bodies, but on or near them as well. In addition to countless delicious, home-cooked meals, she developed natural, easy-to-make recipes for everything from sunscreen to taco seasoning mix, lemon poppy hand scrub to furniture polish. With their simple ingredients, these recipes are allergen friendly and many are gluten-free.With over 130 practical, simple DIY recipes, gorgeous full-color photographs, and Merissa's trademark charm in personal stories and tips, Little House Living is the epitome of heartland warmth and prairie inspiration.

    Laurelynn G. Martin and Byron E. Martin show you how to successfully plant, grow, and harvest 47 varieties of tropical fruiting plants — in any climate! This straightforward, easy-to-use guide brings papaya, passionfruit, pepper, pineapples, and more out of the tropics and into your home. With plenty of gorgeous foliage, entrancing fragrances, and luscious fruits, local food has never been more exotic.

    That's easy enough in the summer, when kitchen gardens and allotments are awash with peas, beans, leafy greens, and soft fruit, but not so straightforward in midwinter, when the ground may be frozen solid. Success lies in the planning, and this book is written as a continuum, with sowing, planting, and growing advice for each month to keep the crops coming.There are also features on harvesting, storing, freezing, and preserving crops to enjoy later in the winter months and the early-spring gap when little is ready to harvest. Advice is given on winter polytunnel and greenhouse crops, and indoor seed sprouting, citrus plants, and herbs in pots to help bring fresh tastes to the table in winter. The result is a year-round manual for productive kitchen gardeners, with plenty of growing projects for raised beds and pots to allow smaller-scale gardeners to take part.

    . . . an optimistic call to action.” —Chicago Tribune Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious. Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West is an inspiring call to action dedicated to the idea of a new nature—a hybrid of both the wild and the cultivated—that can flourish in our cities and suburbs. This is both a post-wild manifesto and practical guide that describes how to incorporate and layer plants into plant communities to create an environment that is reflective of natural systems and thrives within our built world.

    From agaves to ice plants and sedums to sempervivums, hardy succulents can bring color, texture, and versatility to perennial flower beds in any climate. This comprehensive guide offers clear growing instructions accompanied by vivid photography of these durable and beautiful plants. With tips on choosing the right varieties for every North American hardiness zone, you can enjoy all the quirky vibrancy of succulents wherever you live.

    Sure, it’s a tall order, but The Living Landscape shows you how to do it. You’ll learn the strategies for making and maintaining a diverse, layered landscape—one that offers beauty on many levels, provides outdoor rooms and turf areas for children and pets, incorporates fragrance and edible plants, and provides cover, shelter, and sustenance for wildlife. Richly illustrated and informed by both a keen eye for design and an understanding of how healthy ecologies work, The Living Landscape will enable you to create a garden that fulfills both human needs and the needs of wildlife communities.