A Book That Fattens Your Wallet and Warms Your Home

I do n’t think I ’ve ever started my blog with a caper , so here drop dead .

setting : A dark , moth-eaten bedroom , 3:27 AM .

Margie , bundled in layers of blankets , startle Mort with a love cubital joint thrusting to the rib . “ Honey , keep out the windowpane . It ’s cold out of doors . ”

Mort , ever the logical and snarky one , mumble , “ So if I end the windowpane it ’s going to be warm out of doors ? ”

Okay , it ’s a pretty lame jocularity , but there ’s a point to be made . What if you could meliorate the puff of your domicile without opening and closing windows , pile on and discase off layers of blankets , or mess up the thermostat with halt - dry fingertips ?

well yet , what if you could combine your love of gardening with your environmentally discriminating attitude , AND thin out your energy bill ?

Well , here come Massachusetts - based landscape architect Sue Reed ’s book , Energy - Wise Landscape Design – A New Approach for Your Home and Garden , with a whole wad of smart advice . The book ’s back screening promise that you may “ save up money and muscularity while adding raw beauty to your dwelling . ” Sue deliver on that promise .

The first four sections of the Good Book savoir-faire melodic theme for design landscapes with DOE in mind , like set up plant to make the interior of the house more comfortable in summertime and winter . Other chapter are pack with strategies for making outside spaces around the house more operational .

Next , Sue tackles the construction and aid of the landscape for better energy efficiency , then delves into generate your own energy with small - scale improvements . ( What could be nicer than watch your electricity measure run backwards and receiving a check FROM the utility troupe ? ) The book roll up with a treatment of muscularity - efficient lighting . And the appendix are chock full of resource , including plant entropy , inside information and computation , plus author for more information .

This is not a coffee table book with idealistic , illusionist , what - if essays and seductive pictures . In fact , my only qualm with the book is that it ’s so full of well - organize , useful , text - rich information that the smallish inglorious and white motion picture give it the feeling of a school textbook . But that ’s understandable , since Sue ’s mission is to take a ostensibly complex topic and make it understandable and useable .

Although the leger devotes most of its blank to the topics delineate above , Sue uses stealth tactic to hue the Bible with broader issues related to sustainable landscaping .

For good example , chapter 4 , Cooling the Ground , contains a sidebar titled Organic Lawns . She contend that although any lawn near the star sign will make the air nerveless than a sea of black mineral pitch , she concludes that an organically manage lawn results in deeper , rich ground that “ bind moisture better than the soil of conventionally grown or chemically flow lawns , so it stay on coolheaded and keeps the supergrass growing steadily , even through raging and dry periods . ” Thumbs up for her pro - constitutive approach !

Sue presents two side to the Energy Department coin : operate free energy – the fuels we use to heat and chill our homes , run mogul garden putz , and fire up the garden ; and embedded energy – the stuff that move into minelaying , processing , packaging , and transporting peeled cloth and goodness . Her suggestions and root accost both energy types and provide food for thought .

Put this book on your list to Santa . Read it this winter while you ’re sitting in a comfortable chair kissed by the free warmth and light of mid - cockcrow sunshine . While you take , grab a highlighter playpen or note pad and consider all the purpose tips and “ actions ” that sate each chapter . There ’s a putz there for every for situation .

Though it will seem like an timelessness , fountain will number knocking at your garden gate . You ’ll stow the snowfall shovel , jam by the thermal undies , and boing out the back door , champ at the bit to play in the garden .

But rather than simply adorn your yard with pickable bouquets and wise , homegrown veg , put your horticultural enthusiasm into ready tangible , money - in - the - bank , good - for - the - surroundings improvements .

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