Take a look around your kitchen–are all those appliances really clean and bacteria free? Nearly every small appliance has some type of control panel or handle that is touched every time it’s used, leaving body soil and bacteria like Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, plus mold and yeast. And what about what’s happening inside the appliance where food and beverages are processed? Any of these organisms can cause digestive upset or worse....

But a few techniques minimize the work and the mess of cleaning drywall dust on the ground or on drywall. Plus, there are ways to clean joint compound in three stages of drying: freshly wet, half-set, and dried and hardened. How to Clean Drywall Dust on the Ground Fine drywall dust on the ground is easily disturbed. Work carefully to avoid kicking up the dust and distributing it throughout the house....

Below, find a complete guide to fertilizing your roses, including when the best time of year to fertilize is, how exactly to fertilize the buses, plus how to use organic or inorganic fertilizer, How and When to Fertilize Roses When and how much to fertilize established roses depends on the type of rose—tea roses, for instance, require more nutrients than shrub roses—and the length of the growing season. Here are some guidelines:...

Fold It Into a Rectangle With this method, you’ll end up with a thin rectangular shape that allows for space-saving stacking. Use the KonMari Method This method makes it easy to store folded sweaters in a dresser drawer as they can stand one next to the other, and instead of a tall stack of them, they are all easily visible and accessible. Roll It Like a Jelly Roll The rolling method is a great way to prevent wrinkles and store sweaters in a compact, space-saving way....

When you design your own landscape, how do you know which types of flowers and other plants go together? Is it arbitrary—dependent on how good they look together to your eye—or are there botanical reasons to take into account? The fact is, the job in front of you calls for both an artistic flair and a practical bent. Mass Similar Plants Together You may like a lot of different plants, but when designing your own landscape, you may not be sure how to group them....

Autumn fern does not spread much so it’s suitable for small spaces. It makes a good groundcover for shady borders and woodland gardens, but it can also be grown in containers and, because of its smaller size, even as a houseplant. Whether you need to water an established autumn fern depends on the amount of precipitation in your location. Applying a generous layer of mulch, on the other hand, is useful no matter where you live....

Though iris do not suffer from many problems, routine lifting and dividing is necessary to combat iris borer worms and keep plants healthy and productive. Light Irises need full sun to thrive. Irises in full shade produce fewer blooms and may suffer from an increase in diseases. Soil Heavy clay soils do not work well for growing iris, but sandy or gravelly soils are excellent. If your native soil is heavy, you can plant irises in raised beds to help drainage....

Blue star creeper is generally planted from potted nursery plants in spring, and will quickly spread through runners to blanket sunny areas. Individual plants reach full size in a single growing season and will begin extending runners in their second year. While blue star creepers are not invasive by definition, they are not native to the United States and can spread quickly, becoming troublesome in some situations. Keep this in mind when deciding where you’d like to plant blue star creeper....

Blue tweedia is best planted in the early spring as a nursery container plant after all risk of frost has passed, but as nursery plants can be hard to find, the alternative option is to buy seeds and start them indoors. It is a fairly slow, steady grower that will reach flowering size in 70 to 85 days after seed germination. Although blue tweedia is not included on most official lists of toxic plants, some commercial seed packagers note that blue tweedia is in the milkweed family, with a mildly toxic sap that should not be ingested....

These plants don’t have major problems with pests or diseases. However, overwatering and allowing water to collect on the plant foliage can cause fungal diseases. So be sure only to water the soil around the base of the plant. Regular pruning is not necessary, but you can prune off dead, diseased, or damaged leaves as they arise. Light Cardboard palms grow best in full sun, meaning at least six hours of direct sunlight on most days....