TOKYO – During his lunch breaks, Hayato Kashiwagi slips out of his office in Tokyo and heads for a nearby building where, on the rooftop three stories up, he tends a garden teeming with vegetables.

A half-dozen women glide through the water, forming and reforming in kaleidoscopic patterns.

Nothing says English gardens like the fragrant, double-flowering David Austin roses. One can purchase David Austin roses at local nurseries, but it was with great delight that our garden-loving travel group made a pilgrimage in September to the original David Austin rose garden and nursery in Albrighton, England.

Interior designer Barbara Barry’s style evokes classic Hollywood stars Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn: serene, sophisticated, timeless. The female form inspires her furniture designs.

When fall blows in, most of us close up the house and shut nature out. But some South Sounders welcome it inside, blurring the line between indoor and outdoor worlds.

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. – When Kiva Slade makes biscuits for her family on Saturday mornings in January, she has fruit from a nearby farm to spread on top – despite the fact that she lives in Upper Marlboro, Md., and it’s freezing outside.

“How’d you like the towel?” I asked a guy in my household.

Recently, a reader asked me about painting bathroom tile a different color instead of spending thousands of dollars to replace it. Many of you wrote in with recommendations based on your experience. Here are a few:

The last week of October means it is time to rip out your weary, frost-bitten annuals plants such as marigolds, petunias and tomatoes and add them to the compost pile.

Rosalind Bell had been trying for years to get rid of her grass. The Tacoma playwright and gardener would put cardboard down on her North End front yard, then lose momentum and worry what her neighbors thought of the mess. She had a big corner lot that really needed turning into a vegetable-and-herb bed, but no budget for formal landscaping, and didn’t want a lot of hard digging herself.

Do-it-yourself projects are supposed to be fun and cost efficient – if all goes well. Gone wrong, however, they are the exact opposite and can even disturb the peace.

The third week in October is a beautiful time of year here in the Pacific Northwest as fall foliage reminds us all we are more than just the Evergreen State. There is still time to add vine maples, Japanese maples and big leaf maples to the landscape for years of fall color. If you don’t have enough room for a fall foliage tree, consider colorful fall shrubbery such as the burning bush (Euonymus alatus compacta) which is the only shrub I know that caused an unnecessary call to 911.

Here’s the thing about daffodils: They’re a no-brainer.

WASHINGTON – Tens of thousands of people are expected to stream through the White House gates this weekend for a rare opportunity to see the fragrant roses, blue salvias and towering, decades-old trees that beautify the president’s backyard.

Dahlias light up the summer and fall garden with big, showy blooms that can be as big as softball until the first hard frost withers the plant into a crumpled, mushy mess.