Lady Bird Johnson’s legacy lives on, with a state full of wildflowers and a center that can help you pick the right native plants for your home landscape. Want to help bees and butterflies? The LBJ Wildflower Center makes it easy.

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Stop the inhumane poisonings! Here are five ways to safely shoo and deter rodents, all of which are more eco-friendly than spreading poisons that endanger children, and kill pets and wildlife.

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Americans consume a lot of water as a result of their food and lawn choices. Read Danielle Nierenberg’s blog about how we can lower the stress we’re placing on dwindling water supplies. Ms. Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, has traveled the world, studying food and water scarcity, and can tell you how many Kenyans survive on the same amount of water consumed by one American.

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Starting Friday, disposable plastic and paper bags are banned at all retailers in the city. Exceptions include thicker bags with handles, laundry, newspapers, dry cleaners and waste bags.

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So many options, so little time. At least the choices for washers (though not dryers) have become ever more energy and water efficient. Here’s our advisory for 2013.

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Are you weary of mowing, weeding and fertilizing that yawning stretch of lawn? Consider installing a patch of native prairie. A Pocket Prairie can reduce your thirsty conventional turf, replacing it with native grasses and flowers. You’ll be feeding butterflies and birds, and cut down your grass mowing obligations, perhaps to zero.

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Yes, it’s cold for you, the tree trimmer. But pruning in the winter is kinder to plants. It discourages sap flow from the cuts, inhibits the spread of disease (like oak wilt) and gives deciduous and blooming trees time to recover before the spring growth period.

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In an effort to address Texas’ ongoing drought, two state lawmakers have proposed legislation that would free thousands of homeowners from having to water and maintain conventional sod lawns.

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It’s a little like a storyline from those nuclear-age science-fiction movies from the 1950s. An invisible, insidious gas invades your home, poised to undermine your family’s health.
But this is no fiction. It’s radon, a gas that exists naturally in the earth, but can concentrate in homes raising the cancer risk for those who are exposed long term.

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Summer is little more than a memory, and those outrageous air conditioning bills that came with it are, at least for the moment, a thing of the past. Even if temperatures shouldn’t be approaching three figures again anytime soon, making your home as energy efficient as possible during the winter months should be on everyone’s agenda, too.

Before you know it, it could actually be cold outside. And when winter blows into town, you don’t want it to be cold inside, too.

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Here’s a scary thought just released on Halloween, what if your smart meter were leaking information about you to the world?

Automatic Meter Reading systems may need better security, according to a USC team.

With millions of so-called “smart meters” being installed in the U.S. annually, utility companies are getting closer to creating a smart grid that can target energy delivery where it’s needed and thus avoid having to run extra capacity at power plants. It’s a potential win-win that could help keep energy prices affordable.

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It’s getting easier to track your home or business energy use and find ways to reduce your energy consumption and costs.
Yes, there’s an app for this.

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