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Nearly 97% of seniors age 70 and older are using the Internet at least once a week to check email, manage money and keep in touch via social media. All this time online is putting them at risk for scams and hacks, including tax fraud. To help seniors understand potential hazards and how to prevent fraud, Home Instead Senior Care collaborated with the National Cyber Security Alliance to launch a national public education program, Protect Seniors Online, available at www.Protect...
Virtually all parents have experienced the terror of looking up from what they were doing only to realize their child has wandered off. Your pulse races, your heart pounds and you can't relax until your child is back in sight. If you become a caregiver for a parent, grandparent or other loved one with dementia, you may find yourself having the same fear if your loved one begins to exhibit a concerning symptom - getting lost or wandering. The Alzheimer's Association says six...
Gardening has many health benefits, but you need to ensure that you're not putting undue strain on your body. Bayer Advanced lawn and garden expert Lance Walheim, author of Lawn Care for Dummies, knows a thing or two about the aches that can come with spending hours doing what you love in your garden. By using these tips, along with latest ergonomically designed gardening tools, you can take care of your lawn – and your body. Bend at the knees. Bending while weeding, p...
When homeowners think about improvements that can allow them to stay in their homes longer as they grow older, they may focus on things like grab bars in the bathroom or wider doorways to boost accessibility and safety. Yet they often overlook another critical type of improvement that addresses both those concerns, and directly affects seniors' health – access to glare-free, balanced natural light. Age-related changes in vision, such as cataracts or macular degeneration, c...
Home is where the heart is. But home may not always be where Americans feel safest. A new survey from Honeywell found that more than two-thirds of Americans – including 72% of women – do not always feel totally safe in their own homes, though technology may be the security blanket people need to feel connected, comfortable and secure. And while safety in numbers used to provide peace of mind, today, people living in households with more than one person are actually more likely to feel unsafe in their home versus people liv...
Think you can't have a beautiful landscape in the "new California?" Think you can wait it out and keep that fescue turf and those coastal redwoods? Are you ready for a change? If you are still reading you are probably interested, or at least worried. Those of us who have been planting low-water-use plants for years are not so worried about this drought. Of course, drought is stressful to even low-water-use plants, but these plants don't have as much trouble staying green and...
Water-saving landscapes continue as the big trend in gardens, and with good reason. In working with clients over the past several years, here are a few things my company has learned about re-creating a garden that is more water-wise: Reduce the lawn. Outdoor water use can be 60% of household water use, and most of that goes to summer watering cool-season lawns like fescue. Consider alternatives. Fast-growing, California-native ground covers include dwarf coyote bush, bees'...
A popular trend in home gardening is biodynamic growing. This style has been around in one form or another since ancient Roman times and maybe even longer in Asia. Although it is mostly applied to growing food, it can also be used in growing ornamentals, even native plants. One of the key features of this style of gardening is to feed the soil, not the plant. Taking care of the soil is one of the keys to successful gardening of all species, and plants grown in cared-for soil...
Winter, the season of fewer garden chores, is a good season for planning changes you will make in the spring. Pruning deciduous trees and shrubs for safety or to control size, finishing clean-up and adding mulch and compost to existing beds are the main tasks of winter. It is best for the plant if we delay removing frost-damaged foliage until spring, if we can tolerate the appearance. In dry winters such as this, we must also monitor our garden's water needs more closely....
Springtime in California gardens is a bounty of flowers. From fruit trees to roses to California chaparral plants and wildflowers, we enjoy an abundance of riches, even when rainfall has been sparse. Ah, the wonder and beauty of nature, whether beyond the fence or in our own backyards! Also celebrating with us are hundreds of beneficial insects, birds, reptiles and mammals that share our gardens and revel in springtime bounty. This year especially, we are all looking for new...
The biggest garden trend we are finding is the desire for removing the front lawn. Conserving water is the main reason for this garden renovation; reducing maintenance and increasing interest are two other often-cited reasons. The lawn is a garden fad that has hung on, but as more and more lawns are removed, we become better able to see what the possibilities are for the space between the road and the front door. We can envision an interesting use of that space which can be...