Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SERVICE/GARY BACHMANA friendly garden gnome brings year-round interest to your landscape, and if their lore is true, a dose of good luck and a little garden help, too.

GARY BACHMAN Office of Ag Communications

Even though the weather in the middle of winter prevents much gardening with plants, dedicated and enthusiastic gardeners find ways to keep fun and interest in the yard all year long.

You may have seen garden art in other people's yards, but have you considered bringing it into your own? A whimsical way to jump right in is to bring home a gnome.

Garden gnomes are creatures of woodland legend that represent the most elemental spirit of the earth. Gnome comes from the Greek word for "earth dweller," and these statues were first used in German gardens in the mid-1800s.

Early garden gnomes, which were made of terra cotta, were painted and clothed like miners of the day. From the very first, gnomes have been dressed in the little pointed hats we instantly recognize. From Germany, the use of garden gnomes spread to France and England. In parts of Europe, their presence is a status symbol.

Garden gnomes today come in a variety of materials and clothing styles and can be found around the world.

Tradition says garden gnomes bring good luck and goodwill to the gardener who invites them in. Ancient lore says gnomes take care of the gardens they inhabit, enhancing the harvest.

Some believe that at night, gnomes get busy and take care of some of the smaller garden chores. This concept is the basis of the animated movie "Gnomeo and Juliet" in which blue and red gnomes come to life when their owners are not looking.

With all this history and lore, aren't you ready to try at least one gnome in your garden? Even if you laugh at these stories, garden gnomes have value as yard ornaments and can bring a simple pleasure to your landscape.

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Bring a garden gnome home to your landscape

By Ashley Mackin

The La Jolla Parks and Beaches community advisory committee held a special meeting Dec. 23 to discuss plans for the Childrens Pool Walk beautification project and get updates on related money matters.

With just over $250,000 in the bank thanks largely to a $200,000 donation from La Jolla resident Tom Morgan the board needed to approve spending some of that money on the services of design architect Jim Neri.

Artists rendering of the Childrens Pool Walk project Courtesy

Through a statement read by LJP&B member Phyllis Minick, Neri requested the board approve $51,311 in additional fees for the design development, engineering, construction documents, plan processing, permit fees, BID administration and construction services, as submitted in the Dec. 12, 2013 proposal by Neri Landscape Architecture (NLA).

The LJP&B board, to cover any additional and unforeseen fees, voted to approve an amount not to exceed $55,000 to be paid to NLA. Neri said he would offer a fee reduction because he believes this project should come to fruition.

Since this is a community-funded project in my own community, NLA is discounting our fees 20 percent and is not charging the customary 10 percent markup of our consultant fees, saving $6,500 in fees for the construction of this much-needed project, his statement read.

While one set of fees was reduced, another increased. Minick reported that city permit costs have increased by 20 percent since the projects inception three years ago, which translates into $53,000.

However, Minick said she received a letter from the city indicating that $70,000 would be available in mid-2014, and another $30,000 might also become available. Should we laugh or cry? she joked, reflecting on the three years spent and dozens of grant proposals submitted for this project. We thank (District 1 City Councilmember) Sherri Lightner for getting this done.

Minick said, on the advice of some board members, that she will request $70,000 be used to cover city-permit costs.

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Parks & Beaches OKs first Children’s Pool project expenditures

The approach to the citys department of public works headquarters takes you up a gentle hill, on a frequently patched asphalt road, and into a landscape out of 1970s Soviet Russia.

A nonworking municipal incinerator rises up in front of you. Piles of broken concrete are everywhere.

A bright spot: a big stack of new brown-and-yellow yard waste bins that have yet to be distributed throughout the city.

Diesel engines idle everywhere. A shiny purple Christmas tree is wired to the grill of an idling, growling trash truck. There are shiny green balls on the tree.

Its snowing on Thursday, a little past 11 a.m., and its supposed to keep snowing until sometime Friday.

You can hear cars going by down on the highway. A wet American flag is wrapped around the top of a flagpole. The wind isnt hard but its steady.

Inside the headquarters, badly lit, dark hallways lead to offices and a break room full of dented gray metal lockers and a swaybacked green-and-black armchair, no doubt brought in by some employee cleaning out his or her basement.

John Perry is the DPWs director of operations. The title comes with a very dark office. He sits with his back to the window.

Maybe another inch, inch-and-a-half before it turns dark, he says.

Thats when the fun starts.

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SIDE STREETS: Fall River's DPW doesn't go home until the snow's over

Researching the documentary on the rocks of Hyderabad, we met urban geographer Anant Maringanti, executive director Hyderabad Urban Lab, to reckon with issues around urbanisation and geology. We found that the relaxed and welcoming attitude there, had as its bedrock, an intense engagement with the geographic-historic discourse of the city and contemporary re-mappings of it.

Starting out, Anant pointed out that it is impossible to imagine the rocks of Hyderabad without the water bodies that suffuse the landscape. Water laden sagars, kuntas, nullahs, cheruvus and bowlis are as ubiquitous in describing various parts of Hyderabad, as are rock filled bandas, kondas, gaddas and pahads. The region is home to a quirky geology that creates a unique drainage pattern. Anant elaborated that because of the rocky outcrops being in various directions, water does not flow off on one side evenly as in the Gangetic Plain. It flows instead in any direction that the rock surface takes it. This water run-off is caught in various lakes, ponds, canals and other water bodies, in the middle of the rock formations, creating the water-rock combination that is so familiar to us.

For instance Durgam Cheruvu, the beautiful secret lake, was so well hidden within the rocks that it historically used to supply drinking water to the rulers at Golconda, as fear of the water being poisoned by enemies was reduced. Today, Durgam Cheruvu is the celebrated centrepiece of the Cyberabad avatar of Hyderabad, with construction and offices invading its space.

Relentless urbanisation today is denuding our landscape of rocks while water bodies are shrunken, polluted and built into. Retracing a few key historical moments of this urbanisation, Anant describes how, initially there was a small rocky hill fort in the time of the Kakatiyas and the gollas (shepherds) caused it to be named Gollakonda (shepherds hill). Over the years it grew and attained grandeur under the Qutb Shahi rule, morphing to Golconda. When the Golconda fort was overcome by population rise and rampant disease, the Qutb Shahi rulers established the city of Hyderabad.

Once Hyderabad came into being and expanded, it was relatively well-governed; until population growth in the 1970s created huge demands that the municipal system was unable to meet. The 1990s saw the Cyberabad Act passed, allowing large tracts of surrounding agricultural land to be urbanised. The Greater Hyderabad Development Authority and Airport Development Authority came into being to help manage the growth. However the situation currently calls for far more forethought and planning. Indiscriminate quarrying has cut into the rocks, decimating entire hill ranges. Building infrastructure has filled up lakes and dried them, cutting through natural drainage paths in haphazard, hazardous overbuilding.

The leitmotif synergy of rock, water and green cover of our area is in crisis. While increasing urbanisation is a resolute current fact, we need a responsible reimagining of our urban future: moving ahead while retaining our core strength of a uniquely beautiful and ecologically sound landscape, and, respecting a shared heritage of human and physical geography in responding to the compulsions brought by that future.

(The writer is a documentary film maker, writer and teacher)

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Understanding our quirky geology

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Big City Life Marrakech 3
MERYANNE LOUM MARTIN (Interior Designer, art gallery owner) JEROME VERMEULIN (Designer) VALERIE BARKOWSKI (Stylist) PHILIPPE LAURO BARANES (Music producer) B...

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Big City Life Marrakech 3 - Video

I.T concept store, Hong Kong
The latest store format innovations, store design trends and visual merchandising, including the latest store image galleries. Classic modern and cutting edg...

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F.B. Aurum store by Leonardo Macheda, Aosta -- Italy
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Birmingham Rail District home to eclectic mix of design shops and studios

Last year, Fort Washington interior designer and blogger Carrie Leskowitz noticed a trend: Stylish designers, manufacturers, and do-it-yourselfers were suddenly obsessed with dip-dye - plunging curtains, chair legs, and even utensils into vats of dye and paint. It made sense: A few years back, fashion runways had been awash with ombre, and the trend had filtered into hair and even nails - so why not home design?

Leskowitz blogged about the trend, but didn't bother doing any dyeing of her own. After all, she said, trends like that don't last long these days.

"Everything is so global now that the information is everywhere, and it's coming very quickly," Leskowitz said. "There's an arc to a trend. It builds and it picks up speed - and then once it's become so saturated that everyone has done it, the trend is over."

That raises a question: Even as a new year brings fresh trends, how can you put together a room that's up-to-date, but won't appear stuck in 2014 for perpetuity?

The key, said local designers, is applying trends selectively, layering them with neutral, classic pieces, and, most important, staying true to your taste.

"The tenet of good design is really using a certain amount of restraint," said Rittenhouse Square designer Ashli Mizell. "There's a big difference between being trendy and being current."

Mizell sees the design world adopting some bold trends from the fashion runway: Think ethnic prints mixed with unexpected pairings like plaid and leopard print. She's also seeing lots of graphic black-and-white patterns and bold clashing patterns in mixes like pink and red.

Those aren't easy trends to wear - and applying them at home is even more difficult.

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Make home trendy without getting stuck in an era