Free Republic

An older friend of mine inherited a house with a large flower garden in the back. The flower garden is maybe 10 feet by 30 feet. Between the flowers and the shrubbery there are many weeds (no surprise there). A landscaper she talked to will clear the area of weeds, and has given her some options to control future weed growth.

There is a saying among some farmers in the Carolina Sandhills: “A man would have to be a fool to cut down a longleaf pine.” It’s not because the gangly-limbed tree is particularly beautiful. The pine doesn’t have a magnolia’s flowers or an oak’s shade. He could get $4,000 an acre for clear-cutting his mature longleaf pines for timber. Or, he said, he could earn $1,200 an acre collecting pine needles from the same trees — every year.

Senator Rand Paul's neighbor Rene Boucher has pleaded not guilty after being charged for attacking the Senator at his Kentucky home. Paul is currently recovering after he was allegedly tackled from behind by Boucher for what Boucher's attorney told CBS News in a statement "was a very regrettable dispute between two neighbors over a matter that most people would regard as trivial." But Paul appears to be disputing claims made by his next-door neighbor's lawyer that a "trivial" dispute over landscaping issues were at the root of a recent dust-up that left the senator with six broken ribs. The statement...

Applying mulch around your trees, shrubs, garden, and landscape beds is one of the easiest and most effective ways of not only keeping plants healthy, but also reducing water usage, preventing weeds, minimizing mowing...

I received the following and felt it important enough to post an FYI to all FReepers. Even if you don't use it in your yard, neighbors might. "Over the weekend the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. They loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog Calypso decided that the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in...

A friend sent this and I thought it was a good idea to pass this on. Subject: FW: very important, make sure you read this Mulch warning If you use mulch around your house be very careful about buying mulch this year. After the Hurricane in New Orleans many trees were blown over. These trees were then turned into mulch and the state is trying to get rid of tons and tons of this mulch to any state or company who will come and haul it away. So it will be showing up in Home Depot and Lowe's at dirt...

IT'S OFFICIAL: 2005 WILL BE the newspaper industry's worst year since the last ad industry recession. And things aren't looking much better for next year either, according to a top Wall Street firm's report on newspaper publishing. "Sadly, 2005 is shaping up as the industry's worst year from a revenue growth perspective since the recession impacted 2001-2002 period," says the report from Goldman Sachs, adding a warning that meaningful growth in 2006 is "very unlikely."

Wednesday, December 29, 2004 Atheist: Christmas tree recycling unfairProgram changed because incentive said to favor ChristiansPosted: December 29, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com An atheist activist forced Chicago to change its Christmas tree recycling program, complaining it was unfair to non-Christians. The city wanted to bolster its Blue Bag recycling program by offering a years worth of blue bags and some mulch to anyone who turned in a used Christmas tree. But Rob Sherman, known for his campaign to keep crosses off city seals, protested to Chicago, insisting the trees-for-bags exchange unfairly benefits Christians, the Chicago Tribune reported. "The concern was...