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Twenty students from Akron-area schools were honored this week in Project EverGreen's Art of Green Spaces Competition.

Q: I saw a plant called an everblooming geranium advertised in the paper. It didn't look like the annual geraniums I'm familiar with.

What is it?
— L.A., Warren

Three cheers for the red, white and blue. Americans have been using their homes to display their patriotic pride almost since Betsy Ross stitched the first stars and stripes together.

This time of year, especially, we love to wave our flags and revel in all things American.

Some people use the expression dog days of summer when the weather can get so hot it may be dangerous for people to be outside.

As today's holiday arrives, turfgrass is still growing lushly in Northeast Ohio, though some areas of Northwest Ohio already show some browning, dormant bluegrass already because of drier conditions there.

Hydrangeas, daylilies and bottlebrush buckeyes provide landscape blooms and roadsides display their patriotic hues of red clover, white Queen Anne's lace and the blue-sky blossoms of chicory.

We have a problem with our 7-year-old Lab. We live in the country and have three acres on which "Dumpy" roams around all day.

He will not let any critters around our property, and he kills raccoons, groundhogs, and anything that might want to cross through our yard.

Our problem is that he also likes to urinate on anything that we try to grow in our yard. We have to "Dumpy-proof" anything we plant.

Is there anything we can do or plant around that will stop him from wetting on our gardens and trees?

Visit USA.gov to see a slideshow of July 4th celebrations across America, and share your Independence Day photos!

Television product pitchman Billy Mays is remembered as a pop culture icon at his funeral near Pittsburgh.

Jodie Martin knelt down and got a big sloppy kiss. She patted Lucky — a three-legged dog — on the head, rubbed her neck and examined her teeth.

There are things that we all wish were better with our country.

Like you, I think I pay too much in taxes (I have yet to meet a person who thinks he doesn't pay enough). I get monumentally annoyed and disgusted when our political leaders get caught doing unethical things.