Renovation & Design
Renovation & Design
Sun shining on yellow
Step aside, orange. It's yellow's turn to shine.
The last few years have seen greens and oranges in the home decor spotlight, but that's about to change, as the primary colours blue and yellow muscle back into the forefront.
"Orange has started to run its course," says Jack Bredenfoerder, president of Color Marketing Group, an international association of colour design professionals.
As in the fashion world, with its punch of yellow in bangles, bags and high heels, the colour often described as "sunny" and "energetic" is returning as a primary accent colour in home design.
What we wear often determines how we decorate. "It's in fashion now, then in our homes," says Bredenfoerder.
The yellow he sees stepping off the runways is the shade's calmer tones, and combined with neutral colours. Yellow is especially attractive as an accent for whites, greys and black, although Bredenfoerder warns that too much black with yellow can make a jarring contrast.
Combining yellow with grey can create an air of sophistication.
Yellow has long been an accent colour for blue, which is overtaking green as a principal colour in the home. Bredenfoerder, who is design director in the Cincinnati office of Landor Associates, a design and branding firm, advises steering clear of traditional blues, which are ubiquitous, and looking for something new along the lines of an "intense, bright, ultramarine-type blue."
With the changing seasons, now is the perfect time to think yellow, according to Sonu Mathew, an interior designer and senior manager of commercial and residential design with the paint company Benjamin Moore.
"You can use yellow as a bridge from the cooler colours of summer to the warmer colours of fall," she says.
Give a room some punch with a yellow bowl, throw pillows, a slipcover or a bedspread. Or make it as simple as a bouquet of fresh yellow flowers.
Mathew even advises painting ceilings with a hint of yellow to create warmth in the room.
But she warns that yellow can be a particularly difficult colour to navigate.
"It's just a hard colour for our eyes to process," she says.
As an accent colour, yellow brightens a room, but a little goes a long way. The safest yellows are the creamy, calmer ones. Too much of a cheerful yellow can prove annoying.
Associated Press
Renovation & Design
Mancana ash trees hit with fungal disease
The following is a selection of interesting questions I have had from many people in both the Winnipeg area and southern Manitoba.
QUESTION -- The leaves of my Mancana ash dried up this summer, and there are wide openings in the bark. What can I do about this?
ANSWER -- Mancana ash leaves have been infected with ash anthracnose fungus disease. In all situations I have examined this year, the twigs and buds that have been produced are quite healthy, and the tree will grow new leaves if not this year than next year for sure. Have the entire tree sprayed with dormant lime sulfur fungicide next April before the buds open to kill over-wintering fungus spores. Spray the tree again with copper fungicide in June to kill new disease infections from air borne spores. Do two sprayings seven to 10 days apart.
The wide openings on the trunk usually face south and south-west. A number of sources of Mancana ash trees are sensitive to both early and late winter frost damage. Sun scalding in March kills the sensitized cells under the bark along vertical stems. As the tree grows in girth during the spring, these dead areas can not grow with the tree so the bark splits at these locations. The bark dies and falls away in linear patches. The trees' inner wood is exposed to canker fungal diseases especially one called Fusiccocum. This is a disease which can kill parts or the entire tree. Seal the exposed with a wood preservative several times during the summer as well as next year to prevent the wood from drying and splitting allowing the penetration of decay fungus spores. . Have the tree properly fertilized in the fall or next spring to assist growth renewal.
QUESTION -- I put up Tanglefoot bands on all of my trees, but I still got heavy feeding by worms on the leaves. Is Tanglefoot no longer useful?
ANSWER -- Several things could be happening here.
First: Were your bands sufficiently sticky to trap the flightless spring female cankerworm moths? Most bands I saw in the late March to April period this year were dry. It is absolutely important to check the bands after winter for stickiness. If they are not sticky then re-apply Tanglefoot glue immediately. There was a very large hatch this spring of spring cankerworms this year in a number of areas of the city.
Second: If the tops of your trees are in contact or very close to the tops of neighbouring trees, the female moths could easily walk over from the neighbour's trees to lay eggs in yours. This would be true if the neighbour's trees were not banded. Or the worms on your neighbour's trees could crawl over to your trees and have a feast.
Third: Maybe you did not have cankerworms feeding on your tree. The elm span worm does similar feeding damage as cankerworms. Both the female and male moths fly so they would not be trapped by the sticky bands. The moths are pure white and have a wing span of about 2.5 to 3 cm (1 to 1¼ inch) wide. If you noticed many rolled up leaves on the damaged trees look inside the leaf roll. You may see the medium brown pupal case of the span worm. Span worms like canker worms can be controlled with BTK in early spring.
Important: Tanglefoot bands are still an excellent method to control cankerworms. They need to be very sticky and relatively free of insects and leaf litter in the September-October and in April-May periods. If you want to have the bands installed on your trees call Trees Winnipeg (also known as Coalition to Save the Elms) at 775-6642. Place the call now and not in the height of the season when the moths are climbing the trees. There is a heavy rush of tree owners in September who suddenly remember to put up the bands at the last moment.
QUESTION -- My oaks are dying with many leaves turning brown especially in the top half of the tree. What would cause this and is there anything I can do to help the trees?
ANSWER -- Oaks in several areas of Winnipeg especially have been infected by air borne fungal spores of a very complex group of canker diseases principally Cytospora and Phoma. Cytospora is an aggressively lethal disease. Whole trees can die within two years. The diseases are particularly virulent on willows. These diseases affect mature trees that have been stressed. The stress can be through de-icing and anti-icing salt spray near heavily used roads. Construction and heavy compaction will create oak stress leading to these diseases. Even adding a few inches of top soil over the original grade can impact an oak and make it susceptible to canker diseases.
Another problem related to stressed oaks is the active feeding under the bark starting at the top of the tree and working down the tree of the two lined chestnut borer. This is a killing beetle whose populations flare up in the city from time to time.
Both situations need to be properly diagnosed to determine the cause or causes of the stress. Proper fertilization once a year in spring or fall for at least three continuous years helps to slow the down some canker diseases in their early stages of development. Removing properly identified heavily diseased trees as soon as possible is very important in stopping the spread of these diseases. Cytospora canker disease also causes dead branches and needles on spruce, fir, pine and cedar trees. Again heavy infections will kill trees.
Michael Allen is a consulting urban forester and certified I.S.A. arborist and owner of Viburnum Tree Experts. He makes house and garden visits to assess tree and shrub problems. He can be contacted by calling 831-6503 or by e-mail at viburnumtrees@shaw.ca. You can also mail questions to Michael Allen, c/o Newsroom, Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6.
Renovation & Design
Province sweetens pot to convert to geothermal systems
The province is handing out more cash goodies to green-minded Manitobans willing to go geothermal.In addition to the low-interest loans already available, the Doer government sweetened the pot Monday, offering cash rebates and tax credits to homeowners interested in installing the underground heat pumps.
Homeowners building brand new can now get up to $3,000 toward the cost of a geothermal system.
Homeowners with older houses who opt to rip out their furnaces and install the heat pumps can get up to $5,600 in federal and provincial rebates and provincial income tax credits.
There are already about 6,000 geothermal systems at work in the province and the number of new systems grows by about 20 per cent a year. Installers hope the new menu of incentives will double that growth rate.
Energy Minister Jim Rondeau announced the new incentives at the site of McPhillips Common, a huge renovation of a 336-suite rental complex just north of Mountain Avenue. There, private developer B&M Lands has been able to do what the Doer government failed to in Waverley West -- build a large-scale housing development heated exclusively by a geothermal system.
"The underlying economics of it were compelling enough that we felt it would be a competitive advantage and would pay back over the years," said Andrew Marquess of B&M Lands. "We're a proponent of geothermal and (the incentives) are a good first step."
Under the new system of grants and incentives, B&M will likely get about $150,000 from the government towards cost of the geothermal system.
For years, Waverley West was touted as a green suburb that would include large-scale geothermal heat instead of natural gas pipes. But the first phase of the suburb will have only a handful of homes with geothermal, depending on the whim of individual buyers. To combat criticism, the province announced last week the second phase of more than 200 homes will have at least 54 lots served by heat pumps.
The details of the new grants and tax rebates still have to be worked out. The tax credit is retroactive to April, 2007, but the cash rebate for new homes doesn't kick in until January.
The province is hoping the Manitoba Geothermal Energy Alliance will help co-ordinate the program to make it as simple as possible for homeowners.
maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca
Tell me again -- what's geothermal?
It's a heating and cooling system that taps into the energy stored in the earth's crust. Coiled loops are installed under a home or under the yard and extract heat from the ground. It's compressed so it gets even hotter and then it's released into a home. To cool a house, the reverse happens. Hot air is sucked out of the house and pumped back underground.
How much does it save me in heating bills?
Depends, again. The province estimates a savings anywhere between 30 and 70 per cent. Brent Laufer, president of the Manitoba Geothermal Energy Alliance has a 2,000 square foot home and garage and his heating bill is about $500 a year for the electricity needed to run the heat pump.
How much does a system cost?
Depends. Maybe $22,000 to retrofit an old house and $16,000 to build new, depending on the size of the house and the size of the yard.
What are the new goodies the Doer government is offering?
They're a little complicated. If you build new, you can get a $2,000 tax credit and a $1,000 cash grant plus the existing Power Smart loan at 4.9 per cent interest. If you convert your existing home, you can get a tax credit worth $2,100, a federal grant worth $3,500 plus the Power Smart low-interest loan.
Renovation & Design
In Brief
There's a new product line available in Zellers stores across Canada and it's promising to make home decorating a lot easier on your budget and the environment.The Canvas line, which was designed with input from interior designers, includes an innovative, pre-mixed paint and putty system, easy-to-use Room Spacing Kits, hardware with a decorative twist, a functional Design Project Organizer and a collection of stylish and functional totes for keeping all the details of home projects in one place and portable.
The paint line features a low-VOC paint with matching putty in designer neutral colours that make co-ordinating colours and repairing walls simple.
The Room Spacing Kits, with instructions in English and French, offer a simplified way to visualize rooms in the house and create a professional work plan. And the Design Project Organizer offers homeowners a comprehensive tool for organizing and tracking all aspects of a remodelling project.
To learn more about Canvas products, visit canvascorp.com.
--Canwest News Service
