No, I think the reference is to what we now call infra-red heating. Still available and recommended by it's proponents. Google infrared heat and see all the ads!

I have gotten Sunset magazine off and on through the years, and I know it's not solely a garden magazine, but I enjoy their gardening articles. It's nice that it also has info on travel and cooking. But Sunset's focus is the West, so if you're east of the Rockies, it's not great for you. I also received Fine Gardening for a year, and I did like it, but I didn't like the price. With Sunset, I usually take a break from subscribing until they send me the $12/year offer, and then I resubscribe. I got an email from Taunton Press recently, which publishes Fine Gardening, and they have a special publication I'm interested in. It's called Great Gardens, and it's a soft-cover (magazine-style, I think) publication that has photos from the nation's "top 12" gardens and instruction on how to emulate them. I'll put the link below for it, but their site is not loading at this moment. Should clear up soon. Here is a link that might be useful: Great Gardens publication

yes. There was a news item on my local ISP site. It was said that most of the probelms were fro houses siting on mostly clay soils. Not a lot of detail was given, but I know rom expereince that clayey soils do shrink a lot u pon moisture loss. I don't think that houses with deep foundations such as those with basements are having as much trouble. Those houses are getting some crack from normal minor settling. I envision real problems developing from the following conditions: 1. No bsement, houses on slabs. Often, these have shallow foundations, and some inexpensive slab buildings depend a lot on the slab itself for support. 2. Soil unde a slab not consisent from end to end, for example, all clay at one end with a mix of clay ans humus at the other end. These two soils will shrink at different rates and bend/crack slabs. 3. You can expect trouble if a slab foundation is placed on fill that has not been thoroughly compacted. Making a significent depth fill and then compacting only the top surface is not adequate. The fill should be compacted as fill is added in layers, say no more than 3 to 4 inches deep. Effective fill has to be compacted as it is built up. 4. Building codes around here require that excavation for footings must go below the frost line and reach undisturbed soil, whichever is the deeper. If this is not done, footings can settle unevenly. The goal is little to no settling. 5. Footings can settle differently if one end of a building is much heavier than the opposite end and this was not accounted for in the footings. For example, one end of a house could have a full masonary fireplace and be two to three storeys tall while the other end of the house is only one story.

Thank you everyone for your input. I will share some of my experiences. When I moved into my home 5 years ago and first got into gardening, I heard about this main garden tour that is run here through the local newspaper, free to the public, anyone can be listed in it - you just write your description and indicate the times and days you are open within the allocated time period. I thought, why not? The good. It was probably one of the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever done, but everyone was so genuinely appreciative as soon as they stepped in the gate, and expressed it. People were astounded at how many gardens in the afore thought 'lower city' were actual gems. I met some truly interesting people along the way, and some became close friends or people I would see regularly during the year throughout the city (one worked at Lowes, and I would make a point of chatting with him whenever I went there). And many people would come up to me out of the blue and tell me they had been to my garden. There was also a woman who responded to my description (I didn't write a straight forward description; it was very artistic). She was the only person who asked me directly what it meant, and then we had a very intimate discussion where we both shared some of the pains and losses we had gone through - it was amazing to connect on that level. The bad. One of the visitors to my garden was a young couple who were quite smitten by these large flexi-glass cones I had placed in my garden, which I had gotten from my former workplace. They went on and on about them, and literally insisted I sell them two, they wouldn't leave unless I did. This was when there were already a large number of people coming, going and asking me other questions, and I was on my own, felt a bit overwhelmed. I more or less said why don't you just take them now, and you could come back another day and give me some money for them. Oh yeah, they were giddy, they would definitely do that they said, I could trust them...never saw them again. Honestly, I had more than enough of those cones and they weren't a cost to me; it was the principle above all else. It was disappointing to come up against low brows when everyone else was so respectful. The ugly. Sadly, I found from the get-go the organization of the event to be a mess, with no support for you as a person who is volunteering your garden. When I first did it, I had absolutely no idea what i was doing - so I asked a few questions via email to the person coordinating it. No response. After a few emails, I phoned and left a few messages. No response. Ended up winging it as best I could. Found out later that I was not unique in this; many people experienced the same thing. Even the regulars would be trying to get answers to questions - like what the dates might be for the year so they can plan around it - no response. Some people were sympathetic, because "it's just that one person coordinating". And I appreciate the difficulties of organization, I have lived and worked it! But I found out that over the years, people were very interested in helping out, but the person coordinating - no response. So I'm calling BS on that. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, but you get the picture.