Wire Home & Garden

Actor Bruce Willis has entered the fray in the Westside's action-packed housing market, listing his Beverly Hills mansion at $22 million.

From those amped-up TV ads, you have to wonder how humanity survived before collapsible garden hoses and earwax vacuums.

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Is your garden calling out to you to do something and you are not sure what to do first?

Q: I have a dry-laid brick patio bordered on three sides by flower beds. Over the years I have noticed that the bricks are turning black on top. This is not from garden soil or mud, and it is not uniform in its coverage. I have thought about scrubbing the bricks with a water-bleach mix, but I am afraid that it will bleach the bricks.

Every day our appliances take a beating. From the constant opening and closing of doors to turning them on and off, our daily actions can eventually lead to a repair call or earlier-than-expected replacement.

Blue Fortune Agastache, or anise hyssop, is causing quite a stir in our garden. We have dozens - some partnered with TigerEye Gold rudbeckia, others with the scarlet milkweed - but believe me when I say 3- to 4-foot-tall incredible spikes of blue bottle brush-like flowers are indeed stealing the show.

"Until She Comes Home" by Lori Roy; Dutton ($26.95)

Ross Chapin is re-envisioning the neighborhood.

The showers, toilets, washing machines, garden hoses and other thirsty devices can spray your water bill with charges.

Michael C. Hall of "Dexter" fame has bought a restored home in Los Feliz for $3.825 million.

Laura Buzzelli lived her life with a respect for the environment. So she wanted to show that same respect in death, too.

A few years ago, Shawna Coronado was approaching 40, working in a high-pressure sales position in downtown Chicago, taking a dozen prescriptions a day. This was not fun.

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You think tree pollen has been in great quantity this spring?

Stokes' asters have always been among my favorite native perennials though I have typically only grown them in small drifts of five to seven plants. Now at the Columbus Botanical Garden I've got more than a hundred. They are an absolute knockout, and the American lady butterflies are finding them to be a real feast. Striking blue flowers and fiery orange butterflies is a combination that is hard to beat in any garden.

By now, you've planted your warm-season vegetable garden, and are just waiting for the harvests that give you fresh goodies for summer salads and sandwiches.

At the nation's most influential expo for home decor, designers continued to push boundaries with innovative materials and 3-D technology, but the standout looks were more about color, luxurious finishes and, most important, a sense of fun.

Making spring colorful with flowering shrubs is so easy. Just look around. Summer is different. We've kept it largely green with the pink and red of Knock Out roses and the soothing blues of hydrangeas to liven up the scene. But you can have more color - and a different look. Here are five flowering shrubs you can plant right now that grow well in the Piedmont and bloom in summer.

If you want to give Dad a non-traditional gift for Father's Day - we're talking about skipping the ties, cufflinks and socks, here - consider giving him the gift of his own, personalized space; his "Man Cave."