| Lazy gardener Make landscaping your exterior focus
How do you make your landscape stand out? Most of us tend to be conservative when it comes to house styles, so our landscaping is often what grabs the attention of passers-by. Two great sources for ideas: garden tours and design publications. Some great yard spiffing-up suggestions come from Bill Stubbs, author of I Hate Red, You're Fired (Harry H. Abrams, $35; created with former Chronicle home design writer Madeleine Hamm). The book details Stubbs' extraordinary design projects around the world. Traveling so much makes him extra-conscious of the need for low-maintenance touches. It's not necessary, he says, to tackle the whole yard. He recommends making one small area opulent and colorful. Select spots where you can easily replace and rearrange pots and lighting to reflect your moods.
Get soil as soft as pasta
Liz Segler doesn't believe a gardener has to be a slave to the shovel, tiller and hoe. The 67-year-old garden enthusiast teaches others how to save a lot of wear and tear on the body with lasagna gardening. No, lasagna gardening isn't growing basil, oregano, parsley and other herbs often used in the popular Italian pasta dish. It's a method of gardening that maximizes nature and minimizes effort in creating a dig-free garden. Dig-free? "Yes," said Segler. "I don't make lasagna. I don't eat lasagna. But I grow a lasagna garden." Segler first became interested in gardening as a stressed-out teacher and coach. "It helped me unwind. I'd come out here and dig and talk to the plants and then I'd be ready to go in and meet my family and fix dinner," the now retired Segler said.
New landscaping designed with an eye for fire safety
Improvements made to a hillside home, chosen last summer to showcase how fire dangers can be lessened through landscaping, were unveiled Friday to a group of fire officials and landscapers.
Heavy equipment cut, tore and chewed its way through the yard of Adrian Buoncristiani, a retired teacher who has lived in Lakeview for 25 years.
"Now Adrian's a lot safer than he was," said JoAnne Skelly, an educator for University of Nevada, Reno, Cooperative Extension.
The level of safety also had to be balanced with Buoncristiani's aesthetic needs. For example, while the dense greenery in his front yard provided him with a sense of privacy, it also provided a place for fire to possibly spread and jump to his home, Skelly said.
Ultimately, a compromise was reached by not removing all the limbs from lower portions of spruces in the front of his home.
The lawn outside Clark Hall on Thursday was the scene of the first ...
Contestants built protective casings for their eggs, which were then dropped from 50 feet. Winners were determined on how little the egg was damaged, the creativity of the team and their 'egg-quipment.'
Designs for the 'egg-quipment' ranged from a papier-mache baby to a volcano filled with baking soda.
The winners of Thursday's event were freshman economics major Matthew Brown, junior biology major Josh Noble and freshman pre-major Jake Slaton of Phi Kappa Sigma.
The team won a trip to the Flugtag '07 contest in Nashville, Tenn., and a wakeboard from KISSFM, said Matthew Appleby, field marketing manager for the Red Bull event.
Second-place winners won the teams combined weight in Red Bull- roughly 500 pounds. The third-place winners won half of the teams weight in Red Bull - roughly 230 pounds, Appleby said.
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