In the world of interior design, problems often take the form of odd nuisances. For instance, wasted cabinet space in kitchen corners brought us the Lazy Susan. The annoying storage dilemmas (like not being able to properly store a pizza without setting it sideways) found with narrow vertical fridge-freezer combos ushered in Euro-inspired bottom drawer freezer popularity.
Q: Whenever I run my dishwasher, water runs out onto the top of the sink. Is the problem my dishwasher or something else?
Q: I have a Mexican bird of paradise that was planted five years ago that suddenly died. It had flourished until now. I pulled out the plant and sent you some pictures of the dead plant, girdling or circling roots and borers that I found in the center of the stem that probably killed it.
For people who love outdoor cooking, the variety of gas and charcoal grills has never been better.
Q: I have two paloverde trees in front of my house. One seems to be fine while the other has struggled for four years. I am told the tree is healthy, but every summer it leaks white, sticky foam from the trunk. This foam attracts bees and beetles. The tree has received professional borer treatments twice a year, but it’s still bad.
“All good things which exist are the fruits of originality.” — John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), British philosopher, on liberty (1859)
In an ongoing effort to promote healthy lifestyles early in life, local nonprofit organizations are helping establish garden-based learning and bringing fresh food into public schools.
When a group of Faith Lutheran Middle School and High School students approached Principal Scott Fogo about two years ago about building a greenhouse on campus, he wasn’t too enthusiastic.
Everyone is looking for some backyard shade these days, and the latest sun protection is a tensioned fabric canopy called a shade sail. Versions of these canopies originated in the 1990s in Australia and South Africa, where they were made of sailcloth. Today, they are made of high-tech synthetic knits that wear better and block out more ultraviolet rays — up to 95 percent.
Q: My toilet does not flush correctly. The bowl will fill with water, then slowly drain down, or the waste just doesn’t go down at all. I have tried chemicals, but they haven’t worked. What else can I do?
This is the time of year when borer damage in trees and shrubs is most obvious. Limbs are dying. Their damage can be seen from a distance now, but they’ve been working hard feeding on the inside of trees and shrubs for months.
After spring cleaning, some households will venture into summer decluttering. It’s one thing to polish and dust a home, but recognizing that you’re cleaning something you really don’t need or want that’s taking up valuable space brings on a new level of cleaning.
Dear Gail: I just had bookcases built on each side of my fireplace where the builder had what I call “open holes.” In the past my bookcases always became junked up with just piles of books, as I have a lot. So how do I go about decorating them so they look nice? — Tony
Q: In my morning walk around the garden, I found an unusual pattern on the leaves of my Arabian jasmine. Do you have any thoughts on what might have caused this?
Say the word desert and what comes to mind is an area of little rainfall, extreme temperatures and sparse vegetation. Sounds a lot like Las Vegas, doesn’t it? Well, it should as the city is in the middle of the 22,000-square-mile Mojave Desert. Yet this desert is home to more than 1,800 species of plants.
