Our home is our own private space.Whether you are building a dream home or just want to add a little spice to your existing house, all you need is a little time. If you have a garden, you can experiment with a lot of plants, colors, themes, fountains and more. Before venturing to discover whether you really have that 'green thumb', you need to study a little about garden plans, flowers, lawns, trees & shrubs, herbs & vegetables, house plants, landscaping, regional gardening, container gardens, garden guides, paths, pergolas, seeds, pests, fertilizers etc.

Just go through some planting guides and you'll have a fairly good idea. I found the Better Homes and Gardens site offering useful Growing Zone Maps of USA spanning Northeast, South, Midwest, Mountain and Plains, Pacific Northwest, southern California to the Desert Southwest with the ideal locations for growing different plants.

Better Homes and Gardens is a popular magazine in the US Published by the Meredith Corporation, the magazine focuses on homes, kitchen, gardening, crafts, healthy living, decorating and entertaining. It began its course in 1922 when Edwin Meredith, the United States Secretary of Agriculture under Woodrow Wilson, founded the magazine. The magazine has kept in touch with the pulse of the changing times, and today it also has a website www.bhg.com.

The Better Homes and Gardens website is quite interactive and user friendly. The site offers relevant information on topics related to food and recipes, garden, holidays, health and family and crafts. What I personally do not like about the site is, when you open the home page, there is are special offer pop up windows asking you to sign up. But of course, you can just ignore that, close the window and move on to navigate the site.

The website also has a section devoted to Garden Slide Shows. Here, you can view every garden slide show that the magazine has ever done. Tools and Guides is another a helpful section in the website. Arrange-a-Deck, Garden Flower Gallery, Garden Newsletter, Plan-a-Garden and Plant Finder are some useful features. The site also has a forum with a number of great sections but it does not appear to be too active.

The Expert Advice section of the Better Homes and Gardens is probably the most useful. You will find experts sharing their opinion on flowers, roses, lawns, pests and problems, trees & shrubs, vegetables & fruit and tips & techniques. If you have a doubt about something, just express it here and you'll probably get your answer. The website also provides you with the option of joining the club to avail of weekly updates, weekly recipes, newsletters, home improvement ideas and other offers. If you are looking for seasonal e-cards or interesting desktop items or online gifts you may again stop at this site. Some of these offers are fairly priced while others are comparatively a little high.

Targeted at providing useful information, Better Homes and Gardens is fast becoming a preferred magazine in the United States.