The wood ashes you clean out of your wood stove can be recycled by using them as a soil amendment in the garden. In fact, such recycling leaves us with a very satisfying feeling, bringing out the "homesteader" in us. As with using manure and compost, recycling wood ashes in the garden is a "trash to treasure" exercise, a piece of horticultural alchemy that inspires contemplation about the great circle of life.

While manure allows us to take care of the "N" in the great NPK triad, wood ashes are a source for both the "P" and the "K," as Marie Iannotti explains:

"Ashes from fireplaces and wood burning stoves are a good source of potassium and a lesser source of phosphorus and some micro-nutrients, depending on the type of wood burned."

Practical and bucolic: what's not to like about recycling wood ashes? Nothing, as long as you do so in moderation, as About.com's Gardening Guide tells us in this article on recycling wood ashes.

Although other pines do exist in my region (northeastern U.S.), "pines" meant Eastern white pines when I was a boy. But my yard now is graced by a couple of oddball types of pines that bear little resemblance to those giants:

1. Mugo pines serve as ground covers
   and
   
2. Dwarf Japanese pines stand at just 3 feet tall after 10 years

But that's just a small sampling of the world of pines. In her look at pines from around the world, Vanessa Richins, About's Guide to Trees and Shrubs, provides a brief outline on 40 pines from regions as diverse as the Mediterranean and India.

What I like about the recommendations in this Plant Man article on landscaping for the physically challenged is that most of them apply to many of the rest of us, too. For instance, have a look at the following tips for landscaping for the physically challenged:

• Raise plant level to a more comfortable height by planting in raised beds
• Likewise, avoid having to bend over excessively by exploiting hanging baskets, window boxes, trellises, etc.
• Use wheeled caddies to move around your heavy container-grown plants
• Make walkways a minimum of 3 feet wide, to make walking around in the landscape easier

Do you see a pattern here? What I see are suggestions that could just as easily be labeled, "Landscaping for Those With Common Sense" as "Landscaping for the Physically Challenged." Whether one is physically challenged or not, it just makes good sense not to put more strain on your back than you have to. Weeding a raised bed, for instance, is just a whole lot easier than weeding a level bed.

"Sneezeweed does not make most people sneeze," observes Marie Iannotti. So how did the plant known scientifically as Helenium receive its common name? "I’m told," states About.com's Gardening Guide, "the name sneezeweed came about because Helenium’s leaves were once used for snuff."

I rather enjoy sneezing, myself, but I assume that you won't be using sneezeweed to make snuff. So why grow sneezeweed? A fall-blooming perennial and hardly a "weed," sneezeweed is a plant valued solely for the color it offers late in the growing season, since it provides little interest at other times of the year. You have to be patient when you plant sneezeweed in the spring: the investment won't pay off immediately, but you'll reap the rewards of your patience in autumn.