May was a great month for the garden! I spent a lot of time out there and am pleased that it looks as good as it does. It has rained quite a bit and everything is extremely green! I stepped back for some of these photos so you can see the design of the garden [...]
Posted in Growing Food 
Tags: 2011, arbor, backyard, blackberries, dogwood, ecological, edible, flowers, food, formal, fruit, garden, gardening, green, growing, hazelnut, hill, home, home grown, house, landscape, landscape architect, landscaping, lonicera sempervirens, May, missouri, native, organic, perennials, photos, plants, produce, raised beds, raspberries, spring, St. Louis, strawberries, sustainable, trees, trellis, trumpet honeysuckle, urban agriculture, vegetable, vegetables, wildlife 
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Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money, Uncategorized Tags: actual, alternative energy, bills, calculated, calculation, conservation, eco, eco friendly, economical, energy, energy star, energy use, estimate, estimated, federal, geo thermal, geothermal, graph, green, ground source, high efficiency, home, house, hvac, missouri, money, numbers, percent, residential, saving, savings, St. Louis, statistics, strategies, suburban, sustainable, tax credit, taxes Comments Off
Here is the first time lapse video of the garden….April 2011 Note the video begins with the forsythia in bloom and the hill still brown and not cut back or mulched. Then the serviceberries bloom and the grass and hill start to turn green. The next installment for May should show the hill burst into [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: 2011, april, backyard, garden, gardening, green, growing, home, house, landscape, landscaping, photos, plants, St. Louis, stop motion, suburban, sustainable, time-lapse, trees, zone 6 Comments Off
The heating and cooling systems on our trusty suburban ranch was more than twenty years old when we decided it was time to replace them with new, high efficiency models. So Mary and I began our due diligence on the subject and started comparing available options. When I first learned about geothermal heating and cooling [...]
Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money Tags: air conditioner, alternative energy, amount, conservation, cooling, cost, credit, data, earth, eco, ecological, economical, efficiency, efficient, electric, electricity, energy, energy use, expense, federal, gas, geo thermal, geothermal, green, ground, ground source, heating, home, hot water, house, loop, midwest, missouri, money, natural gas, photos, residential, saving, savings, St. Louis, suburban, sustainable, system, tax credit, taxes, technology, time-lapse, utilities, video, water No Comments »
Last updated April 25, 2011 We are implementing energy saving strategies to attempt to reduce our energy use at our home by 50% In this post I am going to be updating graphs showing our total energy use for Electric and Gas showing the difference between the average energy usage of the last 5 years [...]
Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money, Uncategorized Tags: alternative energy, amount, conservation, conserve, cost, data, eco, ecological, economical, electric, energy, energy consumption, energy use, existing, gas, geo thermal, geothermal, graph, green, ground source, home, house, missouri, money, natural gas, reduce, reduction, residential, save, saved, saving, smart, st. lous, strategies, strategy, suburban, sustainable, utilities 1 Comment » I wanted to show you how easily you can save money by changing out some of your light bulbs to compact fluorescent or LED. With a few packages of new bulbs we saved 38% off the total cost of running lights in our house. Read more to see exactly how we did it.
Posted in Saving Energy, Saving Money Tags: bulb, CFL, Compact fluorescent, conservation, cost, costs, eco, economical, efficient, energy, energy use, evaluation, fluorescent, green, home, house, LED, light bulb, light bulbs, lighting, lights, list, money, replace, residential, saving, savings, suburban, sustainable, tips, watts 2 Comments » By Mary Francois Deweese – Registered Landscape Architect and Sustainable Site Consultant, Principal of Acorn Landscapes, St. Louis, MO. When buying a new home, make sure your home inspector looks at the entire yard and reports on possible problems. Some landscape related problems can be very costly to repair. It is important for new homeowners [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: advice, buying, check, construction, drainange, evaluate, garden, home, home buying, home inspection, house, inspection, issue, landscape, liabilities, liablility, mulching, pavement, problem, problems, railings, real estate, roots, safety, tips, trees, walls, yard No Comments »
Not too long ago I woke up and realized…I’m living as part of the problem: the middle of suburbia…in an outdated, energy hog of a house, a big grassy yard, and a car I drive every time I need anything because I’m smack dab in the middle of residential sprawl. What can I do about [...]
Posted in Fewer Chemicals, Growing Food, Saving Energy, Saving Money, Simple Living, Uncategorized Tags: change, conservation, eco, ecological, energy, environment, environmental, family, food, gardening, geothermal, green, growing food, help, home, house, local, problem, residential, saving energy, simple living, solution, sprawl, strategy, suburban, sustainable 5 Comments »
