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Art for garden's sake Local youths use their recycling skills

"I've been downsizing for about eight or nine years now," Samantha Jenkins says from a cozy chair in the living room of her apartment in Browne's Addition. Although the hip, just-turned-40 mother of two teenagers seems an unlikely candidate for empty-nest syndrome, Jenkins expects to be living solo before the decade is out. So while many of her peers have spent their 20s and 30s accumulating material wealth, Jenkins has been gradually shedding it.

For Monica and Brooks Holland, moving to Spokane involved expanding their world and shrinking it all at the same time. While living in New York City, the Hollands rented a 750-square-foot apartment and didn't own a car. Here they own a 2,000-square-foot home and two cars.

A fellow outdoorsman who is also a Spokane psychologist stepped into my home office the other day. "Man!" he said looking around. "I need to spend some time in here. This is not the workplace of a normal man." Hmmmm. To me, my office seems normal enough. On one desk are a computer, a printer and a scanner. On another are a stack of 35 mm slides and a viewing box. A fax machine sits atop a metal two-door file cabinet, and shelves are crammed with reference books, brochures, binders, pictures of my parents and my children, and a few letters and cards dear to my heart.

Sally Slankard never used to let her husband work on house projects. They would hire out odd jobs around the home, although Dan Slankard told his wife he would gladly shoulder them, if he "had the right tools," Sally said.

Trying to teach your dog some manners? Try getting him to learn one magic command instead: Sit.

Dear Collector, This uniquely painted teapot, part of a three piece set, was my mother-in-law's. Each piece is marked with a pagoda topped by the words "Gold Castle," while beneath is "Hand Painted, Chik, USA, Made In Japan."

A water wheel is one of those rustic structures — like an old barn or a gently turning windmill — that most people find peaceful, even relaxing. There's just something soothing about the sight and sound of the wheel turning under the gentle pressure of a running stream. If you're a do-it-yourselfer, you don't need a mill or even a stream to enjoy the tranquility of water cascading over a wooden wheel. This classic water wheel project will make a timeless focal point for any landscape.

A trip out to the garden sent me into despair. It does every year at this time. Even though April is upon us and there are signs of life everywhere in the garden, no one can convince me that the glory of last season will repeat itself. The garden is a ravaged mess from winter and the merciless deer. I panic at the work ahead of me. But fortunately, I also have the antidote. It lies in the roses. It is time to prune them. Once the pruning starts, the panic subsides. To most people it may seem late to wait until April to prune roses. But since we live up on a hill, things are usually two weeks behind what is going on in town. I am wary of the capricious nature of March, when very often nighttime temperature can dip to 20. If I prune then, I worry the frost will do further damage to the already severe winter kills. So I wait until early April and work furiously to catch up. The challenge of this is the damage I inevitably cause to some tender buds. When that happens, which is often, I feel as if my own flesh is peeling off.

"It all started with me wanting more room for my CDs," says Kevin Hekmatpanah, explaining his recent move from a 700-square-foot condo in downtown Spokane to a "fixer-upper" roughly 10 times that size on a bluff overlooking the Spokane River. A seasoned cellist with the Spokane Symphony and an associate professor of music at Gonzaga University, Hekmatpanah, 43, has been collecting classical music on compact disc since the technology first became available in the late 1980s.

Betty Herring spent most of her childhood squeezed into a two-room sod house that she shared with her Oklahoma farmer parents and 12 siblings. An outhouse sat at the end of a dirt path. These days, the 75-year-old grandmother lives in a three-bedroom, two-bath home in a gated community in North Spokane.

•Dwarf trees are becoming more widely available in nurseries, garden centers and from Web sources. •When buying or ordering, be sure to ask if the tree is a dwarf and not a semidwarf. For apple trees, look for a code like EMLA 27, EMLA 26 or M 27 on the tag. Codes represent the dwarfing type of rootstock you want.

I have been using Lily-Miller dormant spray for peach leaf curl on my nectarines; three times during the winter and the spring. It really hasn't been too effective. I am going to put on the last dormant spray in a day or so. Should I use something that has oil in it? When the buds show a little pink, I then spray with another spray for insects. Can you suggest something that works for peach leaf curl? Art Moore, Coeur d'Alene