Prepping Landscaping is Essential After Harsh Winter
DAYTON -- Miami Valley landscape companies are getting ready to shift business away from their snow plows and focus on the growing season. Spring is just aro...

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Prepping Landscaping is Essential After Harsh Winter - Video

SAN ANTONIO More than 40 green industry and other professionals attended the recent Texas Water Star Program presentation of an Earth-Kind landscaping school at the San Antonio Garden Center in San Antonio.

Earth-Kind and the Texas Water Star program were both developed by Texas A&M AgriLife.

Earth-Kind landscaping school attendees tour the San Antonio Botanical Garden. (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo)

Attendees included representatives of commercial nurseries, professional landscaping businesses, landscape designers and irrigators, the San Antonio Water System, Master Gardeners and homeowners.

Program coordinators were Jared Beaver, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service program coordinator for water and natural resources for Bexar County, and David Rodriguez, AgriLife Extension horticulturist for Bexar County.

The workshop was designed for recreational, public, and residential landscape irrigators and contractors, grounds maintenance personnel, retail nurseries and other users of urban water resources, Rodriguez said. We focused on Earth-Kind landscaping, which incorporates the best practices of both traditional and organic gardening in an environmentally responsible manner.

Class instruction included presentations on plant selection and landscaping using Texas Superstar plants; tree selection and placement for energy and water conservation; reducing yard waste and reusing landscaping materials; irrigation efficiency and drip irrigation; and an irrigation audit and evaluation demonstration.

I came to the program to learn more about landscaping in general, said Peter Davis, owner of Davis Company Landscaping of San Antonio. And specifically, I learned a lot about proper tree trimming and more about low-water-use plants for the landscape, like esperanzas and mountain laurels.

Water conservation and proper irrigation were major topics discussed at the school.

We are providing landscape professionals with instruction and management practices that can help them conserve water in recreational, public and residential landscapes in urban areas, Beaver said. One of the biggest uses of municipal water, and the one with the most potential for increased savings, is water use for commercial landscapes and lawns.

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Earth-Kind landscaping school draws variety of green industry, other professionals

The following is a press release from Mall at Chestnut Hill.

Mall at Chestnut Hill is seeking interested landscape artists, horticulturists, master gardeners and floral designers to participate in the 6th Annual Step Into Spring Flower & Garden Show beginning Saturday, April 5Sunday, May 11. Participants will be given a designated area in the mall to display what they offer and their talents for five weeks.

The public will have the opportunity to view displays native to New England along with some of the most rare and unusual varieties. Your business can be featured in creative ways, from logo presence, to sampling efforts, brochure distribution and much more.

This is a wonderful partnership between many talented florists and landscapers and we look forward to working with the participants each year to showcase some of the areas most artistic forces, said Debora Konig, Director of Marketing for Mall at Chestnut Hill. Each spring people come to Mall at Chestnut Hill to view the displays, participate in the special events and be inspired or simply for a reminder that spring is about to bloom!

Interested businesses should contact Assistant Director of Marketing Ashley Wheeler at Mall at Chestnut Hill now until Monday, March 10. Email: AWheeler@simon.com Phone: (617) 933-3577

Visit http://www.Facebook.com/MallAtChestnutHill and follow us on Twitter @ShopChestnut.

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Mall at Chestnut Hill looking for "Step Into Spring" vendors

Clearing Land in Florida 1950
A Tribute to Joyce, my bride of 65 years The 8mm Kodachrome movie was shot by my father on a visit from Wisconsin in January, 1950. How can you not love a wo...

By: Richard Horner

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Clearing Land in Florida 1950 - Video

Nairobi New satellite imagery shows extensive clearance of land used by indigenous groups to make way for state-run sugar plantations in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley, Human Rights Watch and International Rivers said today.

Virtually all of the traditional lands of the 7,000-member Bodi indigenous group have been cleared in the last 15 months, without adequate consultation or compensation. Human Rights Watch has also documented the forced resettlement of some indigenous people in the area.

The land clearing is part of a broader Ethiopian government development scheme in the Omo Valley, a United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site, including dam construction, sugar plantations, and commercial agriculture.

The project will consume the vast majority of the water in the Omo River basin, potentially devastating the livelihoods of the 500,000 indigenous people in Ethiopia and neighboring Kenya who directly or indirectly rely on the Omo's waters for their livelihoods.

"Ethiopia can develop its land and resources but it shouldn't run roughshod over the rights of its indigenous communities," said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"The people who rely on the land for their livelihoods have the right to compensation and the right to reject plans that will completely transform their lives."

A prerequisite to the government's development plans for the Lower Omo Valley is the relocation of 150,000 indigenous people who live in the vicinity of the sugar plantations into permanent sedentary villages under the government's deeply unpopular "villagization" program.

Under this program, people are to be moved into sedentary villages and provided with schools, clinics, and other infrastructure. As has been seen in other parts of Ethiopia, these movements are not all voluntary.

Satellite images analyzed by Human Rights Watch show devastating changes to the Lower Omo Valley between November 2010 and January 2013, with large areas originally used for grazing cleared of all vegetation and new roads and irrigation canals crisscrossing the valley.

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Ethiopia: Land, Water Grabs Devastate Communities

Interior Design Consultations on Skype - Sabrina Bitton
Hi I #39;m Sabrina Bitton, interior designer here in Toronto and I am super excited to be now offering Interactive Design Consultation Packages live on Skype, vi...

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Granite Counter Tops, Glass Tile, Remodeling, Interior Designer, Minneapolis, Woodbury, Hastings
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Table Centerpieces for a Pet-Themed Event : Interior Design
Subscribe Now: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=ehowatHomeChannel Watch More: http://www.youtube.com/ehowatHomeChannel Table centerpieces ...

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Table Centerpieces for a Pet-Themed Event : Interior Design - Video

DesignTV With Steven G. Episode - 3
Miami interior designer Steven G. talks about the legendary Andy Warhol. The third episode of DesignTV with Steven G. Get more premium interior design tips a...

By: Lisa Ricci

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Chicago Interior Designer Lauren Coburn: "What Inspired You to Become a Designer"
Lauren Coburn describes the source of her passion to become an Interior Designer.

By: Lauren Coburn LLC

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Chicago Interior Designer Lauren Coburn: "What Inspired You to Become a Designer" - Video