NELVIN C. CEPEDA / Union-Tribune Southwestern College professor Bill Homyak is helping spearhead creation of a botanical garden on the site of a teaching garden on campus. Features already part of the garden include a Mediterranean-style garden with wall fountain.

What's Inside Almanac More Homescape

The gardens at Balboa Park cover what was once a scrappy, scrub-filled mesa on the outskirts of a busy community. Quail Botanical Gardens was once the modest home of a family that collected exotic plants. And, if Bill Homyak has his way, we'll one day remember the South Bay Botanic Garden as a simple outdoor classroom for landscape students.

The economy keeps falling and, as money gets tight, your plans to redecorate have run into, well, a wall. The redecorating window doesn't have to be closed, though. Interior decorator and TV star Christopher Lowell has seven tips for designing on a budget.

To save money and energy when drying clothes, the Whirlpool Institute of Fabric Science (instituteoffabricscience.org) offers these tips...