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• Plant container-grown and balled-and-burlapped trees and shrubs any time this month. Dig holes only as deep as the root ball is tall, but two to five times as wide to encourage lateral root spread.

• Gain a few degrees of frost protection by covering tender plants with sheets of lightweight fabric row covers.

• Watering plants the day before a frost is predicted can help reduce damage.

• Browning of some interior needles of pines and other conifers is normal at this time of year.

• Apply weather stripping to cracks in foundations and basements, openings around windows and doorways, and along the bottom strip of exterior siding to seal off entry points to keep nuisance insects from coming indoors.

Stay up to date on life and culture in St. Louis.

With its original crown moldings, wainscoting, fireplace, built-in bookshelves and window seat, this house had all of the cozy charm George and Julie Sells were looking for.

Q: My parents quitclaimed their home to me and my brother 15 years ago. Their only condition back then was that we could not sell the home until both of them had passed.

The house was traditional in its design, a style that didn’t fit Pat Fischer’s modern aesthetic, but she knew she could make it work.

Q • How can you tell the difference between the native and non-native beautyberry?

The Pappas house in Town and Country and the Kraus home in Kirkwood, the St. Louis area's only Wright-designed homes, are in very different stages of preservation.

The home has seen several substantial do-it-yourself improvement projects completed in the four years that Adam and Amy Rustige have owned the brick, three-bedroom, three-bath bungalow in Lindenwood Park.

Among the many columns I’ve written in the 30 years since Ask the Builder came to be, this one will be unique. I think it’s important for you to know why I switched careers from being a full-time builder, remodeler and master plumber to a syndicated newspaper columnist and then video personality.

Britt Tate-Beaugard and Tim Beaugard have designed their home with creativity, whimsey, self-deprecating humor, and spirit of inclusiveness and respect for others.

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