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.
Your windowsill is begging for plants, but every time you try to make it work, something either falls off, dries out in three days, or looks like a sad afterthought. I know that feeling. My first attempt at a window ledge garden was a single plastic pot of petunias that blew off my second-floor sill … Read more
My neighbor thought I’d lost my mind when I started digging a foundation in my backyard in October. “It’s nearly winter,” she called over the fence. “Exactly,” I said. By January, I was sitting in 185°F of cedar-scented bliss while snowflakes melted on the little window. That outdoor sauna changed my life — and my … Read more
Your sloped front yard is actively trying to destroy your weekends. Every time it rains, you watch your topsoil migrate to the sidewalk. Every summer, you’re dragging a mower sideways up a hill like you’re auditioning for a circus act. And every spring, the bare patches from erosion taunt you from the street. I’ve been … Read more
Every spring I walk past my neighbor’s yard and feel a pang of garden envy so sharp it practically leaves a mark. Her pink garden — layers of blush, rose, and hot pink blooms cascading from May all the way through October — looks effortless. It took me seven years of trial, error, and one … Read more
My neighbor called me over last spring, practically in tears. She had just spent three weekends and close to $4,000 trying to landscape her lakefront backyard — and it looked worse than when she started. Muddy banks, half-dead ornamental grasses flopped sideways into the water, and a flagstone path that had already started sinking after … Read more
You are settled into your favorite patio chair, a cold drink in hand, ready to enjoy a gorgeous summer evening, when it happens. Buzz. A massive, airborne housefly lands directly on the rim of your glass. Then another locks onto your plate. Within five minutes, your peaceful backyard escape turns into a swatting match that … Read more
My backyard used to be a tinderbox. I didn’t know it at the time. I had ornamental grasses right up against the fence, a cedar mulch pathway running wall-to-wall, and a juniper hedge that a firefighter friend later described as “basically a can of gasoline with leaves.” When a grass fire jumped the road two … Read more
My first fire pit setup was a disaster. I plopped a cheap bowl-style pit in the middle of the lawn, dragged out some mismatched lawn chairs, and called it a “backyard gathering space.” It looked like a yard sale. The grass died in a perfect circle underneath it, the smoke blew directly into everyone’s faces … Read more
Every spring, the same scene plays out in gardens across the country. You step out your back door, glance down at that eroded bank or crumbling old step, and think, “Someone really should fix that.” That someone is you. And you don’t want to spend a thousand dollars on a landscaper to do what is, honestly, a … Read more
Most folks treat azaleas like a “set it and forget it” shrub, usually shoving a row of them against the foundation of their house and calling it a day. I’ve been there. My first garden looked like a suburban waiting room because I didn’t know these plants could do more than just sit there and … Read more