A condemned house on Florida’s Atlantic coast may be empty of people; in their absence, however, other inhabitants have reportedly made themselves at home, to the distress of their human neighbors. Residents of Atlantic Avenue in Indialantic say rats, snakes and coyotes are showing up around their homes with increasing frequency as the abandoned property…
The first drops of rain can send people dashing for the nearest cover. In contrast, one good rainstorm can make it seem as though a whole population of frogs moved into your yard overnight. Suddenly, there they are, hopping through the grass, sitting near puddles and singing their froggy hearts out when the sun goes…
Big, overflowing hydrangeas can look effortless once they are in bloom. Getting them to come back that way year after year takes a little more planning. And some of the work that affects next summer’s flowers actually happens before this growing season is over. On Sept. 2, The Spruce wrote about Nicole Michalpoulos, owner of…
Mums have practically become a staple of fall right up there with pumpkins and ruby-colored leaves, blossoming beside jack-o’-lanterns on porches and patios as soon as summer starts winding down. Some gardeners, however, are reaching for marigolds instead. The familiar yellow, orange, and red flowers can deliver many of the same autumn colors while asking…
A wedding ring lost in an Ohio front yard nearly 50 years ago has finally made its way back to the family that thought it was gone for good. The discovery came 13 years after Jeff Arnett’s father died—and after more than a decade of Jeff returning to his childhood home hoping to complete a…
Nick and Mary Biagioni thought they had found a pretty good curbside freebie: a birdhouse and pole they could take home, refurbish, and put to use at their own Connecticut home. Those plans encountered a bit of a road bump a few hours later when they discovered that a security camera had caught them taking…
A towering tree has stood over one New Jersey neighborhood for generations—and been on this earth even longer. Now, plans to build two homes on the property have neighbors fighting to make sure it stays there for generations more. The London plane tree in Maplewood has a trunk about 6 feet across and is estimated…
A patch of corn growing from a Manhattan sidewalk grew into a flourishing point of pride for a group of young students. The students planted the patch in the spring, watered it through the summer, and watched the stalks climb several feet above them. Then, just weeks before harvest, someone ripped the plants from the…
A daring climber made it hundreds of feet up the side of a Georgia mountain before reaching a point where he simply could no longer safely climb higher—or get himself back down. Stranded on a strip of rock barely larger than his feet, Thomas Perry had to carefully pull out his cellphone and call 911…