Arbor Foundation Offers Free Tree Guide

How many times have you heard someone ask (or you asked) “What kind of tree is that?”

The National Arbor Foundation may be able to help. It’s offering a free 84-page guide. To get yours, send your name and address to What Tree Is That?, The National Arbor Day Foundation, Nebraska City, NE 68410.

Before you light that fire …

With the summer barbecue grilling season in full swing, the statistics on the dangers of barbecue grilling are a bit frightening.

In the past statistical year, 7,300 of the 414,000 home fires in the United States were attributable to charcoal or gas grills. Many accidents involve children.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co. has several tips to keep the grilling season safe, especially for kids. Among them:

The outside of grill housings can cause severe burns on contact. Kids are often mesmerized by flames. They can be seriously burned just touching the exterior.

When carrying hot items from the grill to the kitchen, examine your route first. Make sure there are no children in the way.

For hard-to-find plants

Choice and novelty plants are the mainstay of the Wayside Gardens catalog, and the mail-order nursery has carved a market niche supplying the latest specimens to the gardening cognoscenti.

Among the interesting new offerings in the fall catalog: pia, a dwarf selection of the oakleaf hydrangea, growing to 4 feet; winterberry with improved fruit and foliage ornament named Scarlett O’Hara. As a female holly, this variety needs a male to fruit. Its suitor is named, appropriately, Rhett Butler.

Another offering is a revived Victorian chrysanthemum, Emperor of China, silver and rose colored with quill-shaped petals.

For a catalog, call (800) 845-1124.

Cool and quiet

If you can hear your central air-conditioning inside the house, chances are it’s been placed too close to a window. Have it moved away but still close enough to use the existing hookup, Today’s Homeowner magazine suggests. If you still hear it, install a storm window to block some of the sound.