By Barbara Kessler
After nine years, Mary Bakatsa’s garden is bearing fruit…and vegetables…and flowers…and herbs. It is a chorus of life, and supports more activity than even Mary imagined when she started gardening nearly 20 years ago with a few potted herbs.
Along with her flowers and veggies, which grow side by side, she has [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
Mary Bakatsa is “organic all the way” in her sprawling Austin garden. But that doesn’t mean she simply avoids pesticides and blithely sits back to watch. Organic gardening is more proactive and veteran gardener Bakatsa runs dozens of schemes to nudge nature in the right direction. She places certain plants near others [...]

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By Shermakaye Bass
Ah, the smell of freshly mown grass. It’s the smell of childhood, of school vacations and picnics and lying in the backyard, finding faces in clouds. No one will deny that plush turf is a big part of modern Americana. But the imported, “exotic” grasses of our childhoods, nostalgic and fragrant as they [...]

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By Shermakaye Bass
To sort out which grasses to use and where, we consulted native grass expert Bill Neiman, head of operations and farming for Native American Seed in Junction, Texas. For much of the United States, he recommends “Native Sun Turfgrass,” a blend of 34 percent Blue Grama and 66 percent Buffalo grass created [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
In case you missed the story about how Americans are getting an inadvertent dosing of pharmaceuticals in their drinking water, check out the original AP investigation that ran Sunday. The probe found traces of antibiotics, heart medications, mood drugs, anti-convulsants and sex hormones in water supplies across the nation, from New York [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
There’s been a lot of talk lately about energy independence. Important, no doubt. But we need to think about preserving water too, and nothing works harder toward this goal - or offers as much creative satisfaction - as Xeriscaping.

Planting drought-resistant and native plants that survive on natural rainfall is a familiar concept in [...]

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