Simple Ideas for Better Homes, Gardens & Outdoor Spaces
Turn your backyard into a breathtaking extension of your home—a place to relax, entertain, and connect with nature. Welcome to our Landscaping & Outdoor Living category, your premier destination for design inspiration, durable hardscape materials, stylish furniture, and essential tools. Whether you are building a custom patio from scratch, upgrading your garden beds, or creating an inviting outdoor dining space, we have everything you need to design the outdoor oasis of your dreams.
The slugs you can see in October are not the real problem. The real problem is small clusters of pearly, translucent eggs being laid right now in damp soil, under pots, along the edges of boards, and beneath whatever has been sitting on the ground since summer. A gardener who puts out a few traps … Read more
Brush a tomato or hibiscus branch and a small cloud of white specks lifts off the leaves, circles for a few seconds, and settles back down. That is usually how people first notice whiteflies. By then the insects have often been feeding for weeks. Adults are only about 1/16 inch (1.5 to 2 mm) long, … Read more
You pull back the shower curtain and a long-legged spider is sitting in the tub. A web stretches across the garage door that wasn’t there on Friday. Then a large, fast brown spider crosses the living room floor at nine at night, and it’s the third one this week. The cause is usually less alarming … Read more
Small black flies drift up from a pot when you water it. They land on the window, crawl across the saucer, and end up in your coffee. Most people respond by swatting the adults, and a week later there are just as many. The flies you can see are the smallest part of the problem. … Read more
Most homemade bird feeders don’t fail because the birds ignore them. They fail because the seed gets wet, turns to mold, and either sickens the birds or sits untouched until it’s thrown out. A feeder with no drainage, a flat lid that collects rain, or a tray big enough to hold a puddle will cause … Read more
A patch of lawn turns yellow, then straw-brown, in the sunniest, hottest part of the yard, usually beside a driveway or sidewalk. The obvious diagnosis is drought, so you water. The patch keeps growing anyway. That is the classic chinch bug story, and the confusion is costly because chinch bug damage will not respond to … Read more
A freshly turned garden bed looks a lot like a litter box to a cat, and a lot like an all-night buffet to a raccoon. That’s the root of the problem. The soft, loose soil that makes seedlings easy to plant is exactly the texture a cat wants to dig in, and the worms, grubs, … Read more
A patio that looked fine in July can turn into a mosquito problem by September without a single new puddle appearing. The reason usually isn’t obvious rainfall. It’s the small, easy-to-miss pockets of water that build up as summer storms taper off and morning dew lingers longer on cooler nights: a saucer under a planter, … Read more
A pile of leaves against the fence line looks harmless. It’s shaded, it’s damp underneath, and it’s exactly the kind of spot where mice, chipmunks, and rabbits like to shelter — which means it’s also exactly the kind of spot where fleas and ticks like to wait. Most backyard flea and tick problems don’t start … Read more
You walk outside on a crisp October morning, coffee in hand, ready to admire your fall mums and your arborvitae. Instead, you find nubs where your hostas used to be and a rabbit sitting smugly in the exact spot your lettuce used to grow. Sound familiar? Fall is prime munching season for deer and rabbits. … Read more