The buzz
Published 3:39 pm Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tours de force: Look for previews of two holiday tours in next week’s Home &Garden. The first Camano Holiday Home Tour featuring six homes will be from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Dec. 8. Tourgoers can join a party with door prizes, live music and a silent auction after the tour from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at Camano Center. Call 360-387-5123. You can also visit 10 historic homes at the Holiday Parlour Tour in Snohomish from noon to 4 p.m. on Dec. 9. Call 360-568-5235 for more information. More details on both events will be in the Dec. 6 edition of Home &Garden.
Cool gift ideas: Still struggling for original holiday gifts for friends and family? HGTV has provided these little gems for your holiday joy.
*Give tween or teenage girls a wreath decorated with lip gloss, hair clips and money. Just tie the gifts on with a brightly colored ribbon. It’s fun and practical, too.
*If you know someone who loves to bake, consider giving a specialty pan, such as a tart or cheesecake pan, filled with a sampling of some of your favorite homemade treats and a recipe card for each.
*Don’t just place a gift in a traditional box or bag. Find a creative and useful way to package your gift. Place gifts for a gardener, such as a hand-trowel, pruning shears and seed packets, in a clay pot encircled with raffia. Wrap culinary gifts for an aspiring chef in kitchen towels and place baby gifts in a diaper bag.
Cut the clutter: If you’re into home decorating and gardening, chances are you’ve ended up on quite a few catalog mailing lists, resulting in an overstuffed mailbox, especially this time of year when merchants are pushing nearly everything as a great gift idea.
Now, however, there’s a way to receive only the catalogs you want. Catalog Choice, a free online service at www.catalogchoice.org, lets you opt out of more than 1,000 retailers at your discretion. You keep the catalogs you want and ditch the ones you don’t. Thank goodness: Americans receive an estimated 19 billion catalogs every year, including many that are unsolicited.
Fight weeds: Here are some attractive weed-suppressive perennials rated good to excellent by Cornell University researchers, either for their sun-denying canopies or their naturally occurring volatile chemistry: In shady spots, try thyme, coral bells or bigroot cranesbill. In areas tending toward full sun go for dwarf goldenrod, catmint and lady’s mantle. And in water-deprived landscapes plant heath aster, hardy ice plant and creeping baby’s breath.
Herald news services
