Published: Tuesday, 1/13/2015 - Updated: 35 seconds ago

BY DAVID BRIGGS BLADE SPORTS WRITER

ARLINGTON, Texas Urban Meyer and his Ohio State football team came to AT&T Stadium on Monday in search of a storybook finish to their Texas-sized legend.

If only they could have imagined.

On a night for the ages, Meyer, Ezekiel Elliott, and these indomitable Buckeyes assured their place among the tallest giants in 125 years of Ohio State football.

Dot the i in title. The Buckeyes are national champions.

Down to their third-string quarterback and a prayer a month earlier the equivalent of fourth-and-forever the Buckeyes finished off their extraordinary season with a stunning 42-20 victory over Oregon in the first College Football Playoff national championship game.

eBlade Extra page: Buckeyes reign

eBlade Extra photo page: Scenes from a 60-minute rumble

HACKENBERG: With game hanging by thread, Zeke rides to rescue for OSU

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Ohio State Buckeyes win national title

Okay, so whats the difference? Vegetable gardens are generally thought of as a square or rectangular plot set aside solely for growing food. Edible landscapes are an exciting way to offer an alternative to conventional landscapes which use strictly ornamental plants.

Edible landscapes require creativity and can be just as attractive, if not more so, than conventional designs; yet produce fruits and vegetables for home use. This can be an aesthetic way to relive your worries about contaminated foods as well as helping with your grocery budget. You can incorporate simple edible elements into your existing yard or garden or you can install an entirely edible landscape. Consider color, texture, height, and form when choosing which edible plants to use. The possibilities are endless.

You can use edible plants just about anywhere ornamental plants are used. Most, but not all, fruits and vegetables do best when receiving at least six hours of direct sunlight each day and have well drained soils. If you must plant in partial shade, try fast-growing, cool-season crops such as lettuce and spinach.

Borders & edges Start to think of strawberry lined borders. The alpine varieties of strawberries form runnerless clumps, flower and fruit all year long, while providing white or pink blossoms. (Just imagine nibbling on luscious red berries while weeding, yum.) You might prefer a border of white-flowering garlic chives or the more common purple-flowering variety. Both are good in soups, herbal breads, salads or atop a baked potato. For a fuller border, add some parsley, creeping thyme, oregano, or cilantro. The last three also make great ground covers. A pretty contrasting border combines parsley and/or lettuce (red and green) with alyssum. Dont forget the hot peppers. Their colorful fruit can make things exciting.

Small areas, containers, and window boxes Grow a colorful salad in a small plot or container using pansies, violas, lettuce, calendula, and nasturtiums (all edible). Use determinate or bush type tomatoes. They are less likely to get rangy. Cherry or grape tomatoes add a nice visual spark.

Shrubs and hedges Sweet corn can make a good backdrop for flower gardens. Ornamental corn and some popcorn varieties are beautifully colored. They tend to be shorter than sweet corn. Rhubarb can be a focal point of any garden, especially set among small-leaved plants. Fennel and asparagus both have feather leaves that mingle well with cosmos flowers and make a nice backdrop for flower beds. Blueberries, gooseberries (can replace a barberry hedge), currants, elderberries, blackberries, raspberries, or pest-and disease resistant Rugosa roses are all good choices in place of ornamental shrubs. The Rugosa rose hips are loaded with 60 times more vitamin C than oranges and can be made into teas or jams or eaten raw. (Note: this species can be somewhat invasive and should not be planted in agricultural or meadow areas.)

Vines Grapes and purple-podded beans are good for growing on trellises along with or in place of morning glories or other flowering vines.

Trees You do not have to create an orchard to have fruit trees in your yard. Many varieties require very little care. Use disease-resistant hybrids of apple, crabapple, peach, pear, plum, and cherry. Most are available in dwarf or semi-dwarf sizes for easy care and picking. If you are adventurous, you might try growing Pawpaw, the banana of the north. The pyramidal shape of this tree and the custard-like fruit, which matures in mid to late summer, will be the talk of the neighborhood. Another interesting choice would be the American persimmon, with its spectacular autumn foliage and sweet golden-yellow and orange fruits. (I love persimmon cookies!) One more, the Serviceberry, also known as the Juneberry (Amelanchier) is gaining popularity. Some varieties resemble trees and others tall, showy shrubs. They all feature sweet blueberry sized fruits equally loved by birds and other wildlife.

Edible plants can be featured anywhere ornamental plants might have been used, and can prove equally attractive. Treat edible landscapes more like a hobby than a chore. If you are concerned about being overwhelmed, just start small. Groom them just as you would an ornamental landscape. Edible plants need pruning and weeding and deadheading (harvesting). The upside is that you get to snack while laboring. Take special care to select pesticides and fertilizers that are appropriate and safe on plants to be consumed. Your county Extension office can provide recommendation on pest management.

The possibilities are limitless. Dare to be different and add an incredible edible landscape to your property.

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At Home Living: Edible landscapes a new twist on gardens

IT'S LIKE "THE DAILY SHOW"... BUT NIGHTLIER.

COMEDY CENTRAL'S "THE NIGHTLY SHOW WITH LARRY WILMORE" DEBUTS ON MONDAY, JANUARY 19 AT 11:30 P.M. ET/PT

Shenaz Treasury, Ricky Velez and Mike Yard Join the Series as Contributors

NEW YORK, January 9, 2015 - Stewart & Wilmore, late night comedy's new power hour begins. Comedy Central's "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" premieres on Monday, January 19 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT and air weeknights following "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

Continuing in Comedy Central's grand tradition of producing groundbreaking late night formats, "The Nightly Show" (twitter: @NightlyShow) will provide viewers with Larry Wilmore's deconstructive point of view and comedic take on current events and pop culture. Hosted by Wilmore, the series will feature a diverse panel of voices including Contributors Shenaz Treasury, Ricky Velez, Mike Yard and guests who will participate and offer a perspective largely missing in the late night television landscape.

"The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" was created by Jon Stewart and will be produced by Stewart's Busboy Productions with Stewart, Wilmore and Rory Albanese serving as Executive Producers, Amy Ozols as Co-Executive Producer and Sue Fellows as Supervising Producer. The series' Head Writer is Robin Thede.

Well-known to fans of "The Daily Show" for his role as the "Senior Black Correspondent" on "The Best F*

Original post:
Shenaz Treasury, Ricky Velez and Mike Yard Join "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore" as Contributors; "The Nightly ...

1/8/2015 - South Side Leader

Deer damage to ornamental plants is an increasing problem. Deer populations in neighborhoods have grown rapidly due to abandoned farms, hunting restrictions and suburban sprawl. And they are dining on expensive suburban landscapes especially in areas with heavy snowfall in the woods. In those areas, front and backyard plantings can serve as easy winter forage.

Deer are selective feeders that eat leaves from flowers, shrubs and ornamental trees, said Tchukki Andersen, BCMA, CTSP and a staff arborist with the Tree Care Industry Association. Damage to larger trees can extend up to 7 feet off the ground.

In some areas, deer damage peaks in winter when snow cover reduces the food supply. Most areas with overpopulated deer herds experience problems year-round. The availability of natural food sources and the taste preferences of individual deer make deer-proofing a landscape difficult task in many areas.

Deer will eat almost any plant rather than starve, so damage-control measures will be needed in addition to careful plant selection, said Andersen. Use of fencing and repellents can help control deer damage to landscapes.

A fence is the most effective control against deer damage. An 8-foot fence is generally sufficient to deter deer, and lower fences can work if they slant away from the yard. Tree protectors or shelters also prevent deer from browsing on young trees. Made of polypropylene tubing, plastic tree wrap or woven-wire mesh cylinders, netting can be used to protect individual or group plantings. The netting can be left on year-round if its attached loosely at the base to allow for plant growth, but should be monitored frequently.

Repellents may help deter deer, but they do not eliminate damage completely. Homemade repellents include rotting eggs (mix two eggs with 1 gallon of water and spray the mixture on ornamentals). The eggs rot on the plants and the smell repels deer. Human hair hung in mesh bags makes a simple repellent. Hang the hair bags on the outer branches of trees about a yard apart and replace them monthly. Bars of strong-smelling soap hung in the same way also will work. This is a good way to make use of all those aromatic Christmas gift soaps you dont plan to use. Repellents containing predator urine or spray-on, soap-based mixtures usually only last a few weeks, depending on the weather.

Once deer taste your garden, it is difficult to get rid of them. Replacing the current mix of trees and shrubs with less appealing plants will help move the herd to other sites.

The Tree Care Industry Association recommends planting trees that have a history of surviving areas of heavy deer activity, such as:

Check with local garden centers or tree care companies for more on trees and shrubs that are the least appealing to deer.

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Keeping landscape deer-free

By Audrey Hoffer January 9 at 7:30 AM

In a 50-acre hilly enclave shrouded in trees, 10 minutes from the Capital Beltway in Potomac, Md., are 159 houses built more than four decades ago.

Potowmack Preserve is a contemporary place with an antique name, said Raj Barr, president of the homeowners association, who has lived there for 20 years.

The houses were built during the period when landscape architect Ian McHarg wrote Design With Nature, the landmark 1969 book about planning in a natural environment.

In 1970, developer Croyder-Irvin and designers Cimbco Ltd. and Cohen, Haft & Associates fashioned this community of houses taking advantage of the natural setting in southeastern Montgomery County. They protected the woodlands as green buffer zones and placed the houses into the folds of the topography.

Forty-four years ago someone said green is good and built these houses into the texture of the land, keeping the trees so that today the poplars, oaks, sycamores and white pines are 60 to 70 years old, Barr said. It was quite prescient of them to say, Yes, were going to protect the land, save the trees.

Houses were literally built into each lot. The developer didnt bulldoze the site to make it easier to build, said Rande Joiner, another longtime resident who lives with husband Robert Honig, mother Gloria Weissman, border collies Jedi and Skye, and cats Lyra Peabody and Mr. Frodo.

We looked at lots in Potomac 25 years ago and considered building an Acorn or Deck house. We stumbled into Potowmack Preserve, and the rest is history. Weve been here since 1989, she said.

In harmony with wildlife: Sonjae Whang moved there last year with his wife and daughters, now 3 and 5 years old. They were in a townhouse and were looking for a single-family house with a decent-sized yard in a quiet neighborhood with good schools, said Whang, treasurer of the homeowners association. We like living here. Its close enough to D.C. yet feels far enough away.

Community-owned green space is plentiful around the houses, and Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission land borders two sides. Woods surround quarter-acre lots. Theres a sense of harmony and coherence, said Barr.

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Where We Live: Potowmack Preserve has been developed with nature in mind

January 5 at 11:26 AM

Gardening is much more than growing plump tomatoes or fragrant roses. Gardens are part of the chain of life, with environmental consequences that can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on the choices a gardener makes.

That is the central theme of Landscape for Life, a five-week course that 15 people will begin taking Tuesday through the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy. The course focuses on the concept of sustainable gardening and examines the effects of gardening on pollinators, wildlife, the immediate environment and the watershed.

Sustainability, in the Landscape for Life framework, essentially is to meet our current needs without decreasing the ability of future generations to meet their needs, said Nan McCarry of Lucketts, the lead teacher of the course. Sustainable gardening is just one small way that a person can have a positive impact on the local and wider ecosystems through their ... yard or garden.

The Landscape for Life curriculum, which was developed by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanic Garden, uses a train the trainer model to adapt the course to the local community, McCarry said.

The course is divided into three main subject areas: soil, water and plants. The unit on soils covers topics such as erosion and soil compaction, which is a problem in neighborhoods that have been recently developed, she said.

The need to conserve drinking water is an area of particular concern for McCarry.

We are seeing really frightening droughts in other parts of the country, she said. Right now, we are lucky to be experiencing some wet years, but water is going to become a more limited resource everywhere as we have more people.

Landscape for Life advocates smaller lawns that require less water and fertilizer to maintain, as well as the use of rain barrels to retain water in the yard. Collecting water in a rain barrel conserves water that otherwise would flow down the driveway or through the yard, McCarry said. The collected water can then be used in the garden.

The class also teaches how to create rain gardens by growing deeply rooted native plants, such as white oak, coral honeysuckle or bee balm, among other varieties, to trap water that would otherwise run off the property, McCarry said.

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Loudoun course addresses the growing concerns about eco-friendly gardening

The landscape for how to turn life science and health care technologies into viable companies has changed more in the last 3 years than in the last 30. New approaches to translational medicine have emerged. Our Lean Launchpad for Life Sciences is one of them. But a new class of life science/healthcare co-working and collaboration space is another.

The National Institutes of Health recognizes that Life Science/Health Care commercialization has two components: the science/technology, and the business model.TheLean Launchpad for Life Sciences (the I-Corps @ NIH) uses theLean Startup Model to discover and validate the business model.

The classprovides Life Science/Health Care entrepreneurs with real world, hands-on learning on how to rapidly:

This user/customer-centered approach is a huge step in the right direction in the life science/health care commercialization. However, one of the bottlenecks in actually doing Customer Discovery for medical devices/health care is testing how minimal viable products work in-context. Testing hypotheses with doctors, patients, payers, providers, purchasing departments, strategic partners is hard. It can involve traveling hundreds of miles and can consume months of time and loads of money. Scheduling time to look over a surgeons shoulder in an operating room is tough. Getting time to brainstorm with payers or experts in clinical trials is hard.

It would be great if there were a way to first test these hypotheses and minimal viable products in a realistic setting locally. Then after a first pass of validation, take them on the road and see if others agree.

A new life science/healthcare co-working and collaboration spaceIt looks like someone is actually pulling this together in a life science/healthcare co-working and collaboration space in Chicago called MATTER.

Co-working spaces seem to be evolving into the startup garages of the future. Its a shared work environment (typically a floor of a building) where individuals (or small teams) rent space and work around other people but independently. Yet they share values and hopefully some synergy around topics of mutual interest (same customers, or technologies). Incubators are designed for teams with an idea. They add mentors and additional services and some offer free space in exchange for equity. Accelerators take teams with fairly focused ideas and offer a formal 3-4 month program of tutoring/mentoring with seed funding in exchange for equity.

The MATTERco-working space will havefive unique things specifically for life science/healthcare companies:

By building a co-working space that includes all of these stakeholders, MATTERallows startups (and companies) to get in front of customers and other members of the value chain first, before they leave the building.

Read more here:
Heres a group getting it together in the murky world of healthcare collaboration

Presentations on controlling deer in your landscape, planning a flower "cutting garden" and understandingowls will be offered Saturday, Jan 24, at a Winter Horticulture Workshop in Geneseo, Ill.

The eventsponsored bythe University of Illinois Extensionwill be 9 a.m. to noon atFirst Lutheran Church, 114 E. Main St. Doors open at 8:30 a.m.

The cost is $15 at the door, including coffee, juice and rolls,but you can save $3 by pre-registering by Jan. 22.

To register, go online toweb.extension.illinois.edu/hmrs, or call 309-756-9978 or 309-853-1533. Here's a closer look.

Deer Departed?Martha Smith, a U of I Extenstion horticultureeducator, will discusswhat is knownabout deer control for gardening and the options that may or may not work.

Cut Flowers From Your Yard.Cathy LaFrenz of Miss Effie's Country Flowers & Garden Stuff, Donahue, Iowa, will share her experience and recommendations.

"All About Owls.Susan Atchley, a U of I Extension master naturalist, will teach you aboutowl habitat, diet, behavior, physical features and threats to the species.

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Hort workshop looks at deer, flowers, owls

We want our yards to be the farmers market, a nature preserve, a kitchen, the den and an expression of our own personal style.

Thats the snapshot for whats hot in Tucsons gardens for 2015 according to several gardening and landscape professionals.

Interest in growing food continues to explode. Garden writer and educator Jacqueline Soule says her gardening classes are full, while nurseries can barely keep up with the demand for vegetable and fruit seeds, starts and trees and supplies to keep them growing.

Thats the largest increase in sales by far, says Silverbell Nursery manager Matt Smit. The only thing that is trending up in plant sales is food.

He notes that hes seeing a lot of new gardeners who are in their 20s and 30s, usually not the typical age for gardening. And baby boomers are returning to their growing roots established by their parents, he adds.

Reusing, reclaiming and recycling are increasingly important themes with clients, observes landscape designer Paul Connolly.

Its not so much for a cost savings, although thats part of it, says Connolly, owner of Sundrea Design Studio, Sundrea Landscape Center and Sundrea Style. Its the whole ecological aspect of it.

People would rather repurpose items than to throw them away, he says.

For one design project, Connolly tore up a brick patio in the front yard and used the material to create a new patio in a side yard.

Dirt that was excavated to build new walls and cinder blocks that came from an old wall that was torn down were not dumped into a landfill. Instead, they were used to fill an eroded area that then was landscaped.

Read the rest here:
What's hot in Tucson's gardens in 2015

Updated JAN 03, 2015 5:19p ET

Going inside Florida's 28-20 win over East Carolina in the Birmingham Bowl.

The Birmingham Bowl doesn't have the mystique of some of the SEC's other bowl destinations, but it provided one of the league's more resounding statements of this postseason:

The East has the last laugh.

The division hasn't won a conference title since Tim Tebow and Florida did so in 2008 and this season, while the West was being touted as the deepest division in the nation with Alabama, Mississippi State and Auburn all at one time or another in the playoff mix, the East was in shambles. Underscoring it all, Missouri, the team it sent as its representative to Atlanta for the conference title game, was shutout 34-0 by second-place Georgia and lost to Indiana, which would go 1-7 in the Big Ten.

All that being said, the West went 2-5 in bowl games -- only Texas A&M (Liberty Bowl vs. West Virginia) and Arkansas (Texas Bowl vs. Texas) won -- including top-ranked Alabama's loss to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl national semifinal. The East, meanwhile, improved to 5-0 after the Gators' win over East Carolina.

To review the East's wins, No. 13 Georgia beat No. 21 Louisville in the Belk Bowl; No. 16 Missouri topped No. 25 Minnesota in the Citrus Bowl; South Carolina edged Miami in the Independence Bowl; and Tennessee downed Iowa in the TaxSlayer Bowl.

Chances are this isn't going to alter the landscape in the SEC, but the East can at least go into the recruiting season with some unexpected ammo.

Among the few bright spots on this Gators team was Vernon Hargreaves III, the sophomore cornerback who was named a second-team All-American after totaling 42 tackles, two interceptions and a team-high 12 pass breakups.

But he had a daunting task ahead of him at Legion Field vs. Pirates wide receiver Justin Hardy, the NCAA's all-time receptions leader.

Go here to read the rest:
Four Downs: Florida keeps SEC East perfect with Birmingham Bowl win