Have We Got a Deal for You

If your home and garden look like mine, we both need help.
    Winter 2013-’14 has kept us on the defensive, fending off its blows. There’ve been drafts to keep out, fires to keep burning, limbs to duck, snow to shovel, salt to spread, ice to scrape, birds to feed, falls to heal, floods to staunch, floors to mop … and that’s just my list. I bet you can add a lot more.
    Keeping winter from knocking you down takes just about everything you’ve got. Progress is just keeping up.
    Then, when the glacier recedes, you see the mess it’s left behind. Paint scraped, trees gnarled, shrubs mangled, mud amuck, tire tracks embedded, pansies flattened, only the occasional crocus to color the scene winter’s made. Raking and renewing becomes a primal drive. Plans bloom like the coming spring. This, I tell myself, is the year of my ideal garden. No more false starts and wrong turns. This year I’m going to get it together. Call in the landscaper. Bring on the housepainter. Seek out the power washer. Who knows a tree trimmer?
    And that’s just outside.
    Inside, home has the damp, dim feel of a cave. It’s time to air and scrub, paint the walls that look so dingy in the light of spring and hang fresh curtains, store the furnishings of winter away and change the season, carry out the lawn furniture, fire up the grill and hope for warm days.
    Can you fit it all in your evenings and weekends?
    As you reclaim your home and garden from winter’s ravages, there are people who can help you.
    When you want help getting a job done, these Bay Weekly advertisers are the people I hope you’ll turn to.
    I say so for good reasons.
    First, they’re the people who bring you Bay Weekly. Without the support of their advertising, there would be no paper in your hands. Your business is the thanks we can give them together.
    The second good reason: They get the job done. They’ve been tried, tested and approved by many of us on the Bay Weekly staff.
    The third good reason: They’ve got answers, you and I have questions — and Bay Weekly knows the way to bring the two together. If you garden or even grow houseplants, you already know that Dr. Frank Gouin, the Bay Gardener, will answer any question you ask him. Expert advice at no charge is the third good reason to read on and make the acquaintance of the home and garden helpers featured in these pages.
    The deal is so good that I’ll say it again, repeating my introduction to Bay Weekly’s Home and Garden Service Directory, the special 16 pages inside this week’s paper:
    Through Bay Weekly, you can turn to these experts for answers to your questions.
    Whatever you want to know, ask. I’ll pass your questions along to the right expert for answers. Then I’ll send the advice to you. Finally, I’ll share it with all our readers in our next Home and Garden Guide.
    We’re waiting to hear from you: [email protected].

Sandra Olivetti Martin
Editor and publisher; [email protected]