Alison Sweeney’s House Rules—Make Yourself at Home (but Please, Remove Your Shoes First)

After a successful season of spring cleaning, it’s not uncommon to look around and realize your home could use some upgrades.

For the last 19 years I have spent the third week in May at the Chelsea Flower show. It's one of those Great British institutions that just has to be experienced — a chance to see the country's best horticultural performers all in one space, to glean ideas, spot trends and talk to the people who make our gardens grow.

Jell-O

Better Homes & Gardens / Dylan Chandler

Madeline Tolle. Interior Design: Mandy Cheng

As a researcher of urban agriculture, I was shocked to see a recent news article bearing the headline “Food from urban agriculture has a carbon footprint six times larger than conventional produce, study shows.” I had spent five years researching and publishing peer-reviewed articles and book chapters about urban agriculture during my Ph.D. with the Berkeley Food Institute, and this conclusion seemed to fly in the face of all that I’d read. How could this be? 

If you don't have a green thumb, are in an environment that’s hard on plants, or are just tired of gardening, you might want to look into a garden that isn’t alive at all. Rock gardens are trending (especially in hot, desert planting zones) as a way to design your garden with little or no greenery required. 

Cameron Trimble

If you have limited space indoors, there is still a range of house plants you can buy to add greenery to your home. Succulents and cacti offer the biggest choice of small house plants, but there’s a wealth of other varieties to enjoy, from air plants that grow without compost to the carnivorous Venus flytrap. As well as small plants, look for slow-growing house plants that take time to reach their mature height, such as the nerve plant. Windowsills, desks, hanging planters and shelves can all be enhanced by space-saving house plants.

Craig Melvin is a busy guy: He’s a constant on NBC’s Today, he’s gearing up to head to Paris for the Summer Olympics in July, and he’s the author of a new picture book. At home, he’s husband to sports reporter Lindsay Czarniak and dad to Delano, 10, and Sybil, 7. He recently welcomed a new puppy, Myles, to the family. He’s even taken on a few cozy hobbies (more on that later). Amid all this, Melvin has turned his attention to making his home a sanctuary—and part of that is the rules, written or unwritten, that keep his house running.

Pale brick pavers, laid in a herringbone pattern, run from the open-plan ground floor out into the garden, creating a seamless transition between the two spaces.

The Macallan x The Mark Hotel