All About Better Homes and Gardens

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Our home is our own private space.Whether you are building a dream home or just want to add a little spice to your existing house, all you need is a little time. If you have a garden, you can experiment with a lot of plants, colors, themes, fountains and more. Before venturing to discover whether you really have that ‘green thumb’, you need to study a little about garden plans, flowers, lawns, trees & shrubs, herbs & vegetables, house plants, landscaping, regional gardening, container gardens, garden guides, paths, pergolas, seeds, pests, fertilizers etc.

Just go through some planting guides and you will have a fairly good idea. I found the Better Homes and Gardens site offering useful Growing Zone Maps of USA spanning Northeast, South, Midwest, Mountain and Plains, Pacific Northwest, southern California to the Desert Southwest with the ideal locations for growing different plants.

Better Homes and Gardens is a popular magazine in the US Published by the Meredith Corporation, the magazine focuses on homes, kitchen, gardening, crafts, healthy living, decorating and entertaining. It began its course in 1922 when Edwin Meredith, the United States Secretary of Agriculture under Woodrow Wilson, founded the magazine. The magazine has kept in touch with the pulse of the changing times, and today it also has a website.

The Better Homes and Gardens website is quite interactive and user friendly. The site offers relevant information on topics related to food and recipes, garden, holidays, health and family and crafts. What I personally do not like about the site is, when you open the home page, there is are special offer pop up windows asking you to sign up. But of course, you can just ignore that, close the window and move on to navigate the site.

The website also has a section devoted to Garden Slide Shows. Here, you can view every garden slide show that the magazine has ever done. Tools and Guides is another a helpful section in the website. Arrange-a-Deck, Garden Flower Gallery, Garden Newsletter, Plan-a-Garden and Plant Finder are some useful features. The site also has a forum with a number of great sections but it does not appear to be too active.

The Expert Advice section of the Better Homes and Gardens is probably the most useful. You will find experts sharing their opinion on flowers, roses, lawns, pests and problems, trees & shrubs, vegetables & fruit and tips & techniques. If you have a doubt about something, just express it here and you will probably get your answer. The website also provides you with the option of joining the club to avail of weekly updates, weekly recipes, newsletters, home improvement ideas and other offers. If you are looking for seasonal e-cards or interesting desktop items or online gifts you may again stop at this site. Some of these offers are fairly priced while others are comparatively a little high.

Targeted at providing useful information, Better Homes and Gardens is fast becoming a preferred magazine in the United States.

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Software

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The magazine staff and editors of Better Homes and Gardens have come with a design solution for the intrepid homeowner wanting to realize his/her dream house. The Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 8.0 is the latest edition of that effort that started years back and has become popular among American novice designers and even professional architects and home builders.

Getting to see your dream house with uncanny 3D realism on your PC has never been as easy with a software application tool that can make just about anyone a home designer. You just need to make sure your desktop or laptop PC is powerful enough to render 3D modeling. Not to worry, the software package comes with the recommended PC configuration you need.

Indulge your Imagination

The Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 8.0 gives reign to your innate design skills the better for you to visualize your dream home on the PC. But even people without artistic talent can to it.

Automatic Designing Tools. The Suite has 5,000 competent and easy to use building blocks and tools to simplify getting your design looking real. For starters, you design your lot and backyard terrain with the Automatic Build Terrain and Terrain Perimeter tool that can be aided with a GPS terrain elevation data. Add pools and other landscaping details like fences and driveways from its landscaping library. Generate house roofs, ceiling beams, floor patterns, dormers, stairs, framing and house foundation automatically. Design Templates. There are over 1,500 sample house floor plans as well as a Design Inspiration Gallery with photos by house designs categorized by type that can inspire you with your own unique design ideas. It has a library of home-style templates you can start with or create own customized house designs. There’s also the House Wizard that can automatically generate a house design for you based on information you supply. Design Libraries. There are over 6000 design elements like furniture and electric fixtures, windows and doors, wall paper and floor designs and appliance, just to mention some, in its built-in library that you can just drag and drop on your design work area, or you can design your own. There’s even a Plant Encyclopedia on the side containing 1,500 popular plant species you can learn about that’s suitable in your country as indoor plant ornament in your design. Online Advice. You can get free online design expertise from the Design Planning Center of Better Homes and Gardens as well as download additional design elements from the Home Designer website. 3D Rendering and Virtual Tours. Once you’re done with hour house and interior designing, remodeling, landscaping, and floor planning, go into 3D simulation of light and shadows and a virtual walk-through of your dream house. Project Cost Estimating. Once you’re happy with the look of your new house complete with interiors and landscaping, the Suite will estimate the cost of making your design happen, generating a spreadsheet where you also get material estimates on how much lumber and concrete is needed which creates the basis for the costing.

From Jupiter to Palm Beach Gardens, Sports Are in the Air

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From Jupiter to Palm Beach Gardens things are really starting to hop around here. Why? To paraphrase James Carville, “It’s the weather, stupid”. The weather this time of year is unbelievably beautiful.

I watched this morning’s local weather and the highs are projected to be in the mid-70′s all week. Throw in some balmy, sub-tropical ocean breezes and a full moon and you’ve got a formula for paradise. And major league baseball and pro golfers know this.

On tap around here is the beginning of Spring Training at Roger Dean Stadium in Abacoa. Roger Dean is home to the Florida Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals. The money issue with Pujols is adding a little drama to the scene. A favorite pastime here is for dad’s to skip work and take their son’s to watch spring training. The sports complex is big and you have your choice of who you want to watch practice. Of course this is all good for the local hotels and restaurants. And the gossip pages always keep you up to date on who was spotted in what restaurant. Once spring training is over Roger Dean becomes the summer home of the Jupiter Hammerheads, a minor league team.

Down in Palm Beach Gardens, the PGA National Resort & Spa is getting ready to host the Honda Classic. Last year’s winner, Villegas, is a Tequesta resident and lives near Steve Marino, Mark Calcavecchia and Rickie Fowler. The big news is that this is the first PGA Tour event where cell phones will be allowed but only in certain areas. Only calls and texts though, no photos or videos. Up until now, the guards checked your bags when you entered for the illegal cell phone. An untimely phone ringing could cause a player to miss a shot that might be worth tens of thousands of dollars. The Honda Classic is played on “The Champion”, one of five courses in the PGA complex.

Does this sound like a great place to live? You bet it is! And with the weather and water getting warmer, the fun is just heating up too! You can find your own place in the sun on my website Coastal Florida Real Estate.