Friday, July 4, 2014 | 6:00 a.m. CDT; updated 7:46 p.m. CDT, Friday, July 4, 2014

COLUMBIA In honor of the Fourth of July and backyard warriors everywhere, staff photographer Matt McCormack asked nine residents to show off how they use their outdoor space in the summertime. These are their stories and a glimpse of their greenery:

Luke and Barbara Buffaloe's backyard at 717 Hilltop Drive on June 29

The Buffaloes' backyard is a mix of trees, shrubs and wildlife. Luke and Barbara Buffaloe have found many ways to enjoy their yard, and their kids Ben, 2, and Eleanor, 3 1/2, have also found innovative ways to play in the landscape.

"We like to hike through the woods, and there's a pretty awesome swing hanging from a tree," Barbara said.

"In the last week we've seen raccoon, deer, owls, turkey, red tail hawk and a snapping turtle," Barbara said.

"There's a cylinder in the yard that used to be an old millstone. The kids use it as a rock box," she said.

"The historical society of Missouri said if we ever plan on getting rid of it that they wanted it," she said.

Marion and Alberta Dey's backyard at 4211 Rice Road on June 26

Read more here:
Landscaped escapes: Nine Columbia residents show off their lawns

EDMOND When traveling past the home of Tim Foley at 2600 S. Coltrane you may feel as if you are looking at a large canvas of a French Country house set in peaceful blends of natures colors. However, a year ago this weeks winner of Edmond Yard of the Week would have looked different after a tornado had just damaged the home, uprooted trees and destroyed the landscape.

The first view is that of an expansive area, shaded by many well-groomed native trees and carpeted with a solid lawn, before your eye will be caught by the massive island bed filled with harmoniously shaded colors of impatiens, caladiums, giant hostas, day lilies and large tufts of liriope. More textures are added to the bed with silvery spruces and natural-stone boulders.

There is softness added to the front of the stone and brick house with masses of pentas, angelonia, begonias and scaevola, in pastel beautifully blending shades. Sculptured areas of deep green Mondo grass emphasizes the flower palates of color, as do varieties of ground-cover sedums, moneywort and ornamental blue fescue. Height is added to the landscape with a weeping cedar, spruces, Japanese maple and an ornamental peach. A backdrop of shrubs, with trimmed photinia, yews, laurels, holly, burning bush and spirea, protect the lower layer of flowers. Earth tones appear in the flowerbeds with native rocks and clay pots overflowing with magenta and white impatiens. Gently waving maiden grasses, lantana and Stella del Oro lilies complete the picture.

Two artistic columnar copper flower pots by the entry are a symphony of color with purple fountain grass, elegant tuberous begonias and trailing Mandevilla.

For overcoming Oklahomas weather challenges and giving us a feast for the eye, Edmond Beautiful would like to reward Tim Foley with a gift certificate to Home Depot on Broadway, a gift card to TLC Nursery and a six-month subscription to The Edmond Sun. The Yard of the Week is co-sponsored by Edmond Beautiful, the Edmond Area Chamber of Commerce and The Sun. To share another beautiful Edmond garden, you may nominate it by calling 341-2808.

Originally posted here:
Tornado-ravaged yard springs back to original splendor

CEDAR FALLS | A bald spot appeared on Bill Ruud's manicured yard.In a few years, though, 25 species of native plants will flourish, taking back a small portion of land once covered in prairie.

"We have a Tallgrass Prairie Center. Why not promote it?" says the University of Northern Iowa's business-minded president.

Ruud asked center officials to put prairie plants near his residence. Of Iowa's land, 80percent was once rolling prairie but, as agriculture expanded, less than 1/10th of 1 percent remains.

That good black soil that we farm, it created that, said Daryl Smith, founder and former director of the center.

Prairie plants deep root system can plunge 15 feet, holding soil in place and permitting water to infiltrate the soil. These plants can also reduce chemical runoff on farm fields.

According to Smith, if more prairie were back on the landscape, it could also help mitigate seasonal flooding that devastates communities.

Were lobbying to get prairie established in watersheds on a larger scale, Smith said.

Some 125 acres of prairie dot UNI's campus. Campusgoers may not realize theyre walking past Ohio spiderwort or rattlesnake master and probably understand even less about the plants characteristics. Spiderwort, for instance, also known as cow slobbers, oozes a clear goo when leaves snap. Native Americans used rattlesnake master to make shoes.

Bewildered freshmen may find the compassplant useful. Settlers used it for navigation, since its leaf margins tend to point north and south.

But planting prairie instead of traditional sod grass also represents a long-term cost savings. The plants requires very little maintenance. Center officials estimate the transformation saved UNI about $47,100 so far.

Read more here:
Prairie in Progress: UNI promoting Iowa's natural landscape

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) July 03, 2014

Intensive code schools are gaining notoriety among people interested in launching programming careers as well as the tech companies who are hungry to hire talent. The Iron Yard, a nationally-renowned code school who opened Atlanta offices in March, opens its doors to the public after each set of three month courses to showcase just what it is their students are building behind those glowing computer screens. On June 20th, they welcomed their first graduating class into the developer community with a day of demonstrations and presentationsand the projects proved as varied as the participants in their courses.

What type of student fits the mold at an immersive programming school? The Iron Yard aims to change the landscape of education in technology, beginning by opening their courses to candidates from all walks of life. From mid-career financial gurus to creative-types, the common vein that runs true at The Iron Yard is a passion for learning and a propensity for problem solving. With no coding experience required, how far could a three-month course take students? Far enough to launch a career, get a job, or start a company. Students spend the final two weeks of their project-based curriculum building a robust application for over 80 hours each week, tackling everything from concept to deployment. That capstone project serves as proof that they are ready to work as a professional and solve programming problems for companies and clients.

This month The Iron Yard graduated Mobile Engineering and Ruby on Rails Engineering classes at ThoughtWorks in Midtown. The event was open to the public, local hiring partners, and recruiters. The presentation of final projects was exciting and full of variety. Some students took a playful approach to everyday needs: a socially integrated iOS app for barbecue enthusiasts, an application that mashes up famous love letters to send to loved ones, and a resource for generating cocktails based on current home inventory, to name a few. Others entered the education space, creating platforms for educating and training students of all ages. With the vast developer talent void prevalent in Atlanta, the presentations gave a hopeful glimpse into the future of tech in the growing Southeastern city.

Developers, developers-in-training, and representatives from area corporations, including State Farm, were present to see the culmination of twelve weeks of intensive programming. Graduates will go on to enter the industry as developers in back-end, front-end, and mobile technologies, and are currently interviewing for roles that will fill the wide gap we face in Atlantas tech industry.

Interested in learning to code or hiring development talent? Check out theironyard.com to find out more, and mingle with the graduates themselves at their next Demo Day.

Original post:
The Iron Yard Graduates Inaugural Coding Classes in Atlanta

When Ruth and Hurst Mauldin downsized to Sedgefield in 1999, there was little but red dirt in their small back yard.

But the veteran gardeners looked past the red dirt and envisioned a lush, green sanctuary. In fact, Ruth says her garden has become a place she goes to contemplate, to celebrate and to praise.

The Mauldins, both retired educators, raised two daughters in a Tudor home in Myers Park one with a big backyard and a garden that Ruth describes as down yonder. When they decided to move to a one-story house 15 years ago, Ruth told her Realtor, I just need a place with a front and back yard so I can dig.

And as hard as it was to leave their mature garden behind, the couple love having their plants and flowers within easy reach. Its all just out the back door and visible from every window in the house.

And its not as if they left the old Myers Park garden entirely. Much of it came with them hostas, Lenten roses, azaleas, primrose, King Alfred daffodils and some liriope (commonly known as monkey grass) their old friends, Jean and Joe Vance, had given the young newlyweds in Birmingham in 1965.

Ruth says the garden is still a work in progress. The Mauldins have taken on the task little by little, and their garden continues to evolve each year and with each season.

Working in the garden is therapeutic and almost spiritual for the Mauldins, who love their church (St. Andrews United Methodist), take care of the earth and try not to harm any of its creatures.

They occasionally put out moth balls (the smell is supposed to be a repellent) for the critters that feast on their plants, but mostly they peacefully coexist with bunnies and chipmunks. Slugs are the one pest they wont abide.

Siberian iris caper

The couple has been known to go to extreme lengths for a plant they covet. Hurst confesses to a caper that involved digging up a Siberian iris in an abandoned area and transplanting it in their yard. It was just so gorgeous, says Ruth.

The rest is here:
Retired Charlotte couple converts their plain backyard into a showcase

Your landscape is very much like your home's interior dcor.

It grows old, sometimes tattered and torn, and needs updating from time to time. Sometimes, plantings need to be completely torn out and totally replaced.

Our landscape is eight years old, and annually we make changes taking out stuff that fails to suit our likes or needs or just doesn't thrive the way we expect it to.

Occasionally, we remove an entire bed, like we did this spring. A simplistic planting of dwarf English boxwoods now replaces winter-weary dwarf gardenias.

The new look follows my gardening motto: You grow or you go.

I also want plants to behave or they go. Within the last two years, we removed all rose bushes because the thorns were just too much for my skin. We also took out many ornamental grasses because the annual pruning was more than we wanted to do. Retired, my husband Ken and I have many interests to claim our time, and while gardening is one of them, we don't let the yard consume our lives. After eight years, we have finally fine-tuned it.

Professional pointers

In landscape design classes at Christopher Newport University, I learned a landscape lasts for 10-15 years before it needs at least a partial redo.

Local landscape designers agree.

"When I started my business 21 years ago there was a housing boom in Williamsburg and the bulk of my business was landscapes for new construction," said Peggy Krapf of Heart's Ease Landscape & Garden Design (www.HeartsEaseLandscape.com).

Read the rest here:
Yard & Garden: Landscapes need TLC

Once an expanse of lawn, the front yard of the Glass residence is now an attractive landscape with low-water plants, mulch and decorative rock.

Steve Glass had already replaced the grass in his backyard with a low-water landscape. So, when he heard about rebates offered by the San Diego County Water Authority for turf removal, he and his wife decided it was time to make the switch in their Mira Mesa front yard as well.

The front yard before the makeover.

He credits the online resources of the water authority, plus information on the website of Las Pilitas, an Escondido native-plant nursery, with getting him up to speed on the process.

The guy who does the survey of your property (for the San Diego Water Authority) is quite knowledgeable, he added. Hes got good opinions.

Glass killed the 837 square feet of grass himself, using Roundup; that took about three weeks. The couple chose the plants themselves, but hired a landscape contractor to do the planting and add a permeable path of pebbles and large decorative rocks, plus gorilla hair mulch (actually shredded redwood) around all the plants.

The plants are a mix of natives and other low-water species, including purple rockrose, California buckwheat, caryx, seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) and salvia Mrs. Beard.

Kathleen and Steve Glass chose new plants themselves for the landscape redesign.

People have weird misconceptions, Glass says. Low-water doesnt mean cactus; you can get some really good plants.

For irrigation, the home already had a 10-year-old Weathermatic weather-based smart controller. Glass capped most of the existing sprinkler heads and installed five Hunter 12-inch pressure regulating pop-up sprinkler bodies with rotator heads.

Read this article:
A turf removal success story

Do you spend long hours outside, making your landscape beautiful? Do you know someone who does? Now you can be rewarded for all that hard work. Enter The Southerns contest, Best on the Block.

We will choose the Best on the Block from submitted photos, and each months winner will take home three prizes: $50 gift certificates from Plantscape in Herrin, Changing Seasons in Marion and Southside Lumber in Herrin. Winners will be featured the last Friday of July, August and September on the At Home page.

One more thing: The yard work must be done by you, not a professional landscaper or gardener.

Heres what to do:

1. Take a digital photo of what makes your yard or your friends yard a contender. It can feature flowers, flowering shrubs, overall landscaping, vegetable gardens, rock gardens or whatever makes your yard the Best on the Block.

2. Go to http://www.thesouthern.com/bestblock to enter your information and upload your photo.

A winner will be chosen near the end of the month by a panel at The Southern and will be featured in a story in the At Home section the last Friday of the month.

So, put the pruners down, grab your camera and enter today.

Excerpt from:
Best on the Block: Enter and win!

Thursday, June 26th, 2014 Issue 26, Volume 18.

FALLBROOK The Fallbrook Beautification Alliance (FBA) has announced the winners of its seventh annual Outstanding Landscape awards.

Each year, the FBA recognizes those who have taken an extra effort in keeping Fallbrook beautiful. Submissions are open to residential and commercial properties alike. An FBA-appointed committee reviews each submission for innovative, sustainable, or beautiful landscaping, architectural design, public art, preservation, conservation, and more.

The winners for 2014, by category, include:

Residential

The home of Sharon and Bill Desatoff, located at 1624 McDonald Rd. was selected as the residential winner for 2014. The fact that the Desatoffs were in the floral design business for more than 15 years shows.

This do-it-yourself project was completed section-by-section, taking six years. The landscape has no automatic irrigation and is all hand-watered.

Taking lessons that she learned from the Fallbrook Garden Club, such as in mulching, Sharon has created a garden and butterfly paradise. The property has many large boulders, all donated by local construction companies looking to keep them out of their way.

The yard originally contained fruit trees but is now home to rolling walkways, birdbaths and trellises, as well as many vibrant flowers and numerous native plants. Butterflies flutter around host plants, including the butterfly bush and flambego. Morning glories add lots of color, accented by purple, pink, and white delphiniums and cosmos.

Drought-tolerant

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Outstanding landscapes earn honors

Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 5:23 p.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 5:24 p.m.

Janet Plunkett, an Etowah County Master Gardener, recently fell and broke her right wrist. (Janet is right-handed.) When her fellow Master Gardeners heard of her plight, several came to her rescue by sprucing up her landscape.

When a crew of eight Master Gardeners arrived, each one looked around, selected an area of landscape to tackle and immediately went to work. A few Master Gardeners hoed weeds, others pruned shrubs and a couple of men pruned the lower limbs of some smaller trees.

A few Master Gardeners worked in Janets vegetable garden.

Others raked and cleared debris from the yard, and a few cleared some overgrown vines that covered a stretch of backyard fencing.

A couple of overgrown shrubs were removed as well.

Months ago, a large limb from a neighbors tree, which had been toppled by high winds, landed along the perimeter of both yards. A couple of brawny Master Gardeners went to work sawing the large tree limb. Very soon that area of the landscape became neat, opened to receive sunlight and was looking good.

In less than three hours, the crew of Master Gardeners accomplished a great deal of work.

Both homeowners, Janet and her neighbor, were most appreciative of the tree removal.

As lay horticulturists trained through Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Etowah County Master Gardeners perform service to the community, often lending assistance with school, church and Habitat for Humanity landscaping projects; sometimes offering advice with landscape design. From April through September, area Master Gardeners staff the Horticulture Helpline, answering horticulture questions and seeking solutions to problems. In late winter and early spring, a couple of Master Gardeners give hands-on pruning classes to the general public.

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CAROL LINK: Master Gardeners spruce up injured colleague's yard