Grass is a water hog. Here’s how to create a drought-tolerant yard.

Eleven steps to transition your yard (or portions of it) to a drought-friendlier — but still inviting — space.

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What a knob! Beautiful handles for your home – in pictures

Recycled fire-hose handles, sustainable brass pulls and reclaimed fittings can update your kitchens, doors and drawers

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Balmy Britain: why you should visit Ventnor Botanic Garden

Tucked away on the Isle of Wight’s south coast, this haven really can boast a balmy UK microclimate – and has the lizards to prove it

I feel like I’ve been to a lot of places in Britain that have boasted of a microclimate. And, as any self-respecting pedant will tell you, they are probably correct: “There is a distinctive microclimate for every type of environment on the Earth’s surface,” says the Met Office. But while we all love a windy upland, the areas that really get the juices going are those pockets of Britain where it feels unnaturally balmy.

It was when my daughter was so shocked by a wall lizard darting out from a rock that she stumbled backwards and sat on a cactus that I knew that Ventnor Botanic Garden (VBG) was the real deal.

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Hidden gems bring a palace in Palermo back to life

Dazzling frescoes and ornate floors are set off by modern pieces in a restored Sicilian palazzo

When Dario Longo, a lawyer based in Milan, wanted to return to his hometown of Palermo he spent a long time searching for the right place. “I wanted to make peace with this beautiful, but hectic city with its hidden treasures,” he says.

“I bought this house in 2013, after a long search,” he explains. “I was looking for an authentic historical building, but most of the old palaces I visited had been heavily refurbished so had lost most of their soul. When I saw this place I realised it was exactly what I was looking for.”

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Weekend podcast: Fatboy Slim, Marina Hyde, and ‘winging it’ to the top

This week, Marina Hyde on Boris Johnson’s ability to blame everything on anyone but himself (1m42s), musician Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim, on his mental health DJ classes (8m48s), Emma Beddington investigates whether winging it to the top really works (19m07s), and Imogen West-Knights looks at how the ‘mid-century millennial’ look took over our homes (33m03s)

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‘Mid-century millennial’ – the ubiquitous look that took over a generation’s homes

Curvy sofas, industrial finishes, pastel overload … mid-century-ish furnishings have come to define the millennial look. What’s the appeal – and what will our homes look like next?

For two years from 2017, I was subletting a flat in Stockholm, and the deal was that it would contain everything except the owner’s clothes and some of her books. This suited me as I hadn’t taken anything with me except clothes and some books.

My new abode scored almost full marks on the Millennial Apartment bingo card, created in 2018 by Laura Schocker for the Apartment Therapy website. It featured 24 mainstays of home decor to tick off, and went viral online. In my flat’s sitting room, a neon “love” sign was fixed over the brass bar cart. There was a faux cowhide rug here and a Berber-style rug there. It also had an Eames knock-off chair, a marble table with rose-gold legs, kooky contrasts between round, soft things and hard, angular things, and plants everywhere. Edison light bulbs in rose-gold cages, brass pineapple bookends either end of a shelf peppered with mini cactuses … it had the lot.

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An Ikea hacks expert took questions about getting a custom look on a budget

Ikea hacks expert Lotta Lundaas joined Jura Koncius for a live chat about how to give your furniture a more custom look.

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How to wring value from your dryer: start on high spin and don’t overdo it

Experts share their dried and tested tips for making your dryer work more efficiently and last longer

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There is something extremely satisfying about pulling a load of warm, fresh laundry out of a clothes dryer. But as a general rule, if you have the time, space and weather to dry your laundry on a clothesline, you should. It is energy efficient, cheaper and much gentler on your clothes.

But as line drying is not always practical or possible, experts here explain the nuances of using a clothes dryer.

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The huge appeal of tiny alpines

These pretty little plants are wonderful for creating a sense of space

Gardening trends may come and go. Yet there are some once ubiquitous styles of old-school horticulture that have been desperately out of fashion for so long that even someone in their 40s, like me, has only really seen them in the yellowed pages of dusty text books. Something so iconic of their time – the outdoor equivalent of crocheted doilies – that it is almost impossible to imagine them reinvented to be relevant and practical. So when something truly great comes along that shakes you out of your preconceptions, you have to be grateful. This is where I have to take back everything I have said about alpines.

I used to very unfairly think of this enormous and incredibly diverse group of plants from the world’s mountaintops as tiny and fussy. The kind of thing that was largely invisible amid the huge “currant bun” mounds of gravel and rocks you’d see in soulless 70s suburbia. Most of these had been long abandoned by the 90s when I was a kid, but even the most pristine examples I had seen in botanic gardens always had an imbalance of plants to hard landscaping. Vast, high-ceilinged glasshouses with huge concrete beds, where you had to play a kind of botanical “Where’s Wally” to spot any precious traces of greenery.

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How a young couple turned a ‘crap’ old caravan into a luxury family home

Stylist Hannah Bullivant radically downsized into a second-hand static caravan to save for a deposit

In January 2021, Hannah and Dave Bullivant posted a leaflet through every letterbox along the main road in their village. The note asked the residents of Oare in east Kent if they could move their cars on a particular day to make way for a wide load that would be travelling through the village to a field behind their friends’ house.

“There were two or three incredibly tight corners with very, very old buildings on either side,” says Dave. “We knew it was going to be tight.” Within moments of the leaflet landing, Dave’s mobile started to ring. “It caused such a furore,” he recalls. “People were coming out on to their doorsteps to voice their concerns. It took all of my placation skills to calm everyone down and explain that it’s all going to be OK.”

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A therapist took questions on letting go of guilt around housekeeping

Jura Koncius and K. C. Davis discussed how to stay sane while housekeeping.

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Designer Jonathan Adler on how to find your decorating style

We spoke with potter, designer and author Jonathan Adler about color, style, minimalism vs. maximalism, and more.

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How to clean a greasy range hood

Hot water and soap should do the trick — and don’t forget the filters.

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‘Gloriously gnarly’: what professional botanists plant at home

Wild as some may look, botanic gardens are orderly places, where everything is planted for a reason. But home gardens are different, altogether more personal

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Walking through London’s Kew Gardens on a winter’s day, the botanist Prof Tim Entwisle was struck by the sight of a Persian ironwood tree. The tree was leafless but not lifeless. While others in the gardens were bare-branched and stark, the ironwood’s vibrant red blossoms stood out against the snow.

The image stayed with Entwisle. It prompted him to plant a Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica) at his home in Melbourne, where it thrives, out of place, in the heart of an orderly garden.

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* This article was originally published here

‘Gloriously gnarly’: what professional botanists plant at home

Wild as some may look, botanic gardens are orderly places, where everything is planted for a reason. But home gardens are different, altogether more personal

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email and listen to our podcast

Walking through London’s Kew Gardens on a winter’s day, the botanist Prof Tim Entwisle was struck by the sight of a Persian ironwood tree. The tree was leafless but not lifeless. While others in the gardens were bare-branched and stark, the ironwood’s vibrant red blossoms stood out against the snow.

The image stayed with Entwisle. It prompted him to plant a Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica) at his home in Melbourne, where it thrives, out of place, in the heart of an orderly garden.

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* This article was originally published here

Houseplant of the week: bird of paradise

This majestic, high-drama plant is surprisingly low maintenance and makes a bold statement in your front room

Why will I love it?
Add a bird of paradise (Strelitzia reginae) to your home and you’ll gain the ultimate symbol of tranquillity. The plant is known for its large, fan-shaped majestic leaves and for sculptural flowers that resemble an exotic bird in flight.

Light or shade?
Bright light.

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A garden designer took questions about creating inviting outdoor spaces

Carmen Johnston and Jura Koncius answered your questions about creating an inviting garden where you can entertain guests.

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Feeling down? Maybe it’s your houseplants’ fault

Healthy houseplants can improve your wellbeing, but now research has found that sickly specimens can make your stress levels spike

Name: Sickly houseplants.

Age: Slightly too old.

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Toast of the town: a home in Oxfordshire

French finds and classic designs mingle gracefully in this lovely family house

Imagine, if you will, that you picked up a painting of an unknown but beautiful rural British landscape by chance 40 years ago in a French flea market near to where you were raising your young family. You loved it, so you’ve hung on to it all these years, moving it from wall to wall, house to house, country to country. Fast forward to 2021, you take it to be reframed in Oxfordshire where you have recently relocated and realise the scene you’ve been looking at all these years is the very town to which you have moved.

“I kid you not,” says Suzie de Rohan Willner as she relates the tale at the detached Georgian house

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Mister Manners answered your questions about wedding registries

Thomas Farley of Mister Manners and Jura Koncius answered your questions about wedding registries.

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Welcome June and a Tea Update

Welcome June, June is my favorite month so I am always happy when it arrives. It is also, the start of lilac season here to make it even better. I picked my first bouquet of the season in our garden yesterday. We have many different varieties in our garden to extend the season.                                             This was taken last June. Love old buckets full of

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