Lifestyle

One of the most cost-effective and dramatic improvements you can make in your landscape is to define your planting beds with retaining walls. Landscape walls can “tie together” your foundation plantings and extend your home visually, enhancing its value and making maintenance easier. They can solve landscape problems such as slopes along the foundation, bringing plantings up level with the house for a more professional look. You can also use them to visually “link” outlying beds such as driveway entrance plantings with the rest of your landscape.

The Scioto County Public Library would like to recommend these book titles. Each title is available to borrow with your library card! For more book recommendations or information on applying for a library card go to www.yourppl.org or call 740-354-5688.

NEW YORK — As part of Older Americans Month this May, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA) is offering four ways to help older adults be proactive about their brain health.

In the kitchen with Sharon this week is my good friend Lesley Lightner with her amazing recipe for mini meatloaf muffins. Leslie said everyone loved it. Leslie always has something good cooking in her kitchen.

If you’d like to enjoy the spectacular blooms of Clematis, you need to understand two key points. First, Clematis needs lots of sun but wants cool, rich, moist soil to grow in. Second, Clematis vines want to climb, and are happiest when they can run as high as possible during their growing season. The best location for most Clematis is against a high fence or wall in full sun, with the roots in shade. Some large-flowered hybrids fade badly if they get too much sun and these should be planted in where they’ll get morning sun only or partial shade. Clematis roots should be in cool, moist, rich soil, without competition from shrub or tree roots. A good way to do this is to plant the Clematis against a wall, behind foundation shrubs. Roots should be well protected from damage or disturbance; stay away from them if you’re digging or cultivating. Old-fashioned chicken wire makes the best support for Clematis vines, since they can’t grasp thick branches or heavy trellising. Most trellises Are too short, too smooth, and with their slats too far apart or Clematis. If you use a decorative trellis, attach chicken wire to the back. This is easy to do with “zip-ties” or wire., and won’t show at all once the vines cover it. Established Clematis vines can easily climb ten to fifteen feet each season, so give them as tall a structure as you possibly can. Allow a few inches of ventilation space behind your trellis. Clematis plants are often sold “bare root” or in tiny pots. It’s well worth it to get larger plants with a big root system; these will perform much better much sooner. Clematis has a very large root system, so pretend you’re planting a tree. Dig a planting hole as large as possible (two feet deep and wide is ideal), throw away the excavated soil, and replace it with topsoil. Mix plenty of composted manure and peat moss with the planting soil, plus some Plant Tone or similar perennial fertilizer. Plant with the base of the plant one to two inches below the soil surface. Use groundcover plants, shrubs, mulch (or some combination), to keep the sun off the root zone; shallow-rooted perennials like pachysandra, creeping phlox, hardy geranium, candytuft, or vinca vines cool the soil without competing. In dry seasons, water deeply once a week. Early-flowering Clematis and large-flowered hybrids bloom in spring, from buds produced the previous season. Prune these back as soon as possible after bloom but don’t cut into the woody trunks. Prune again in February or March by removing dead and weak stems, then cut back remaining stems to the topmost pair of large, plump green buds. Late-flowering Clematis bloom on the last two to three feet of the current season’s growth. Some types begin blooming in mid-June and continue into the fall. This is the easiest group to prune since no old wood needs to be maintained. In February or March cut each stem to a height of about two to three feet, including some good stems and buds. Eventually the length of the bare stem at the base will increase as the vine matures. Fall-blooming Clematis is a different plant entirely. Also called Sweet Autumn Clematis, this is a fast-growing hardy vine covered with small white blooms with an intense sweet smell. It’s great

As I said last week, we would get back to the movies. My brother Aaron and I actually did a double feature. We saw both Renfield (Nicolas Cage as Dracula) and Evil Dead Rise. I won’t dive into Renfield too much, but I thought it was a solid film but not great. If Nicolas Cage wasn’t in it it would be very forgettable. I’d give it 3 stars. However, I will spoil this right now. Evil Dead Rise was REALLY, REALLY, GOOD! This is also coming from someone who isn’t a big fan of the franchise. Yes, we have another franchise. The Evil Dead Universe is made up for 5 movies and a tv show that features the original hero Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) The original film came out in 1981 and became a cult classic. You then had Evil Dead II in 1987, which was a sequel/remake with the same cast. A little weird. You have Army of Darkness also starring Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams and then we had Evil Dead that was released in 2013. Ash isn’t really in it. There is a new protagonist. I enjoyed this one and then obviously 10 years passed. So how would this film hold up? Would I be bored and unimpressed…No

The Scioto County Public Library would like to recommend these book titles. Each title is available to borrow with your library card! For more book recommendations or information on applying for a library card go to www.yourppl.org or call 740-354-5688.

In the kitchen this week I wanted something different. I happened to see a recipe from my friend Patricia Nicholes and to the kitchen I went and stirred up this delicious cake. You can’t go wrong if it says grandma and this recipe is Grandma’s Apple Pecan Cake.

One of the first signs of spring is the colorful billows of creeping Phlox in light blue, white and all shades of pink, creeping along rock gardens and slopes. Creeping Phlox is a hardy, dependable groundcover plant that is widely used to suppress weeds on hard-to-mow slopes.

As I mentioned last week MOVIES ARE BACK! This week we are going to look at Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. If you are familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, it is a tabletop game that was first released in 1974 by Hasbro. You will be surprised as its no secret I’m a nerd, but I’ve never played this. I know I know. I promise I haven’t. However, my best friends Kirby Claxon, Logan Stringer, and I play a boardgame known as HeroScape. This is somewhat similar. In the actual game you create characters, give backstories, and develop abilities. The roll dice to “fight.” If you’re a fan, then you already know. I also didn’t do the game justice by explaining it. This movie is not about the game, it is essentially a live action game. We have a group of “thieves” acting as the characters you would play in the game. This is akin to Lord of the Rings or another hack and slash adventure. So would this be forgettable like another Dungeons & Dragons film that came out in 2000 or something better? Spoiler alert it’s much better!