Since spring is right around the corner, I felt it appropriate to share some titles that will fit well into your gardening library. Books are still one of the best ways to keep up with the latest in landscape design and the needs of plants. These new favorites of mine cover a wide range of garden- and landscape-related subjects.
l"Flowering Plants: A Pictorial Guide to the World's Flora," general editor Leon Gray (Firefly Books, 2011, $24.95), has more than 700 detailed color illustrations and interpretations of plants listed by family. Each plant is identified by its common and scientific name. Illustrations throughout the book explain the story of each plant, the type of flower, plant similarities and differences, and the general distribution of plant habitats. This volume is an excellent way to learn about plant relationships. For example, some plants can be members of the same family but look completely different from one another. Take this 288-page softcover field guide on your next long trip, and you'll find that you only need batteries for a flashlight, not an iPad.
l "Continuous Container Gardens: Swap in the Plants of the Season to Create Fresh Designs Year-Round," by Sara Begg Townsend and Roanne Robbins (Storey Publishing, 2011, $19.95), will show you how to stay green through the year. The authors use hundreds of high-quality color images to demonstrate their design guidelines and suggest numerous possibilities for plant use. This 271- page softcover book beautifully illustrates numerous ways to grow plants, including flowering trees.
l "Ornamental Grasses: Wolfgang Oehme and the New American Garden," by Stefen Leppert (Frances Lincoln Ltd., 2009, $45), is the ultimate grass book. Ornamental grasses were not used very much in gardens 20 to 30 years ago. In the 1970s, landscape design primarily consisted of installing trees and shrubs as foundation plants against houses, with trees used in lawns. The New American Garden changed that approach to garden design and introduced a new style to landscape architecture and design. Having come from Germany, Oehme was designing on this continent with plants that hadn't been tried here. His intense enjoyment of Beethoven could well have influenced his sweeping design style. This 143-page hardcover, full-color "idea" book has about 225 photographs. It's a valuable reference book to have on your shelf or coffee table.
l "Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies and Their Habitat" (Storey Publishing, 2011, $29.95), a 370-page book, has images to illustrate the intricate ways that pollinators communicate, congregate and move. The greater the diversity of pollinators the better yield from your garden. Providing foraging habitat, nesting sites and egg-laying sites for pollinators will boost your crops.
l "The Secret World of Slugs and Snails: Life in the Very Slow Lane," by David George Gordon (Sasquatch Books, 2010, $14.95), is about animals that the author admits he didn't like until he started learning about them. It's apparent from one comment, "To err is human, to slime is sublime," that as his appreciation for these creatures grew, he became fascinated by them. This 150-page softcover reference book includes fun facts such as these: Slugs are simply snails without shells. French diners consume more than 14,000 tons of escargot snails every year. In the mid-1980s, students at the University of California at Santa Cruz chose the native banana slug as the campus mascot. Snails and slugs are hermaphrodites, equipped with male and female reproductive parts and can, under certain conditions, mate with themselves.
l"Fifty Plants That Changed the Course of History," by Bill Laws (Firefly Books, 2010, $29.95), presents interesting information and impressions about plants. For example, trade in tulip bulbs in 17th-century Holland led to the world's first major financial crash. Agaves have supplied raw materials for products ranging from ships' mooring ropes to tequila. And rubber plants in South America were known to indigenous people as weeping wood, and the sticky compound was used to keep feet dry and protect skin from fungal infections. Hardcover, 224 pages.
l "The Small Budget Gardener: All the Dirt on Saving Money in Your Garden," by Maureen Gilmer (Cool Springs Press, 2009, $16.95), will save time and money. Gilmer has broken the 238-page hardcoverbook into 11 useful sections. The book offers suggestions for saving money on energy and water, and it promotes recycling and the reuse of anything that can be handy in the garden.
Joel M. Lerner is president of Environmental Design in Capitol View Park, Md.
Robert Rodriguez is keeping Project Green Screen moving at full force but has one more task for BlackBerry fans. In the short film, the weapon-wielding sisters fight a monster - but that monster has yet to be created. That's where you come in.
Robert is asking fans to come up with their craziest, scariest or most over-the-topiest ideas for a movie monster. The winner will be the best and most original monster creation as chose by Mr. Rodriguez himself and a team of artists will bring the creation to life.
Check out the video above for a quick briefing, then head to the BlackBerry Keep Moving Hub for more.
Topics: Keep Moving Projects BlackBerry Media Developers: Take the Vision Mobile survey and you could win a new BlackBerry Z10! Previous Follow the 2013 Masters on your BlackBerryNext Adam Zeis 2921 (articles) 2761 (forum posts) 7 comments Sign in to comment fb tw gp wn deercreekmichael 4 hours agoVery nice. Hard to believe Robert Rodriguez's first film only had a $7000 budget.
Reply DOCTOREVIL8 4 hours agoSomeone should merge all the popular techie ppl into one monster. Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. That would be one scary monster. Maybe leave the Blackberry personnel out of it since it's pro blackberry.
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Reply El Platanero 3 hours agoHow do I out a pic on my profile? I have yet to be able to figure that out
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Reply El Platanero 3 hours agoHm
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Reply Lonestar 3 hours agoWhatever the Monster design is they should call it the Phablet Creature and once it has been slain that word may never be uttered again.
Reply feldmen01 2 hours agoAnd queue the videos of cats dressed as monsters.
Reply jrlong 2 hours agoMy idea was a big Droid with a basket full of apples that he would take a bite out of and then throw at the superhero hot girls.
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Reply CrackBerry 13.102.764 Readers per month Mobile Nations | Android | BlackBerry | iPhone/iPad | Windows Phone | webOS Follow CrackBerry Facebook Twitter YouTube RSS Podcast Google Plus Site Links Site Support ShopCrackBerry Support ShopCrackBerry Affiliate Tip us on News! Advertise Media Enquiries About CrackBerry About Mobile Nations Copyright © 2013 Mobile Nations • Terms and Conditions • Privacy PolicyCrackBerry is in no way Affiliated with BlackBerry. We take pride in our unbiased content, however do occasionally receive free products from vendors that we review or discuss. For more info click here.
Desktop | Tablet | Mobile | Mobile LiteWord has it Chrysler is keen to shove its new turbo diesel V6 into a range of models. Wards Auto reports Chrysler President and CEO Saad Chehab has made it clear the automaker is investigating the possibility of using the 3.0-liter oil-burner in the 300. While speaking at an Automotive Press Association luncheon, Chehab said, "It's a matter of how much the customer is willing to pay for that premium. That's the only issue with it."
The Chrysler 300 is sold as the Lancia Thema in Europe complete with a diesel of its very own, and since the Jeep Grand Cherokee is now available with the diesel V6 here in the States, it only makes sense that the engine could potentially show up on the 300 order sheet. Opting for the 3.0 V6 in the Jeep Grand Cherokee will set you back an additional $4,500, however.
Chehab also said the engine could make an appearance in the next-generation Chrysler 200, which is set to debut next year.
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