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You probably have never heard of this mosquito-fighting technique before: Use a fan.

If your Mother’s Day offerings tend to fall into two categories: a) gift cards or b) yet another orchid, we’re here to redeem you with a whole new genre: cool stuff for the garden.

Have you seen these mosquitoes?

Ugh, mosquitoes. We swat, squash and curse them.

You’ve seen the signs dotting Los Angeles streets advertising the annual La Cienega Design Quarter’s Legends event, but unless you’re in the design world, you’ve likely written it off.

It was our third date. I’d been single for three years, two on purpose.

First came macramé, then ceramics, indigo dying and quilting.

Tour some of Pasadena’s most charming Arts & Crafts-era homes at the 27th Bungalow Heaven Home Tour on Sunday.

Birding while sipping a beer atop the Ace Hotel? As part of Bird Day L.A.’

Looking to downsize from her four-bedroom home in Beverly Hills, designer Amy Shock longed for a coastal live-work retreat.

My friend Jim called to tell me Mark Murphy was singing at the Jazz Bakery.

I spent nearly six years in Los Angeles earning my PhD in neuroscience, a pursuit in which, as my father has observed, one of the most important lessons was how to fail.

Sustainable made-in-L.A. furniture maker Cisco Home delves further into environment-friendly design with the launch of Cisco Prints, its first print collection of textiles.

There are many ideas to steal at the annual Pasadena Showcase House of Design, one of the longest-running showcases in Los Angeles.

How about a big pint of Bug Juice to slake your thirst?

Creating three restaurants in Manhattan Beach finally gave chef David LeFevre the experience and confidence to direct his newly developed eye for design toward a place he’d previously ignored: His own living space.

In-Trinity is in many ways the polar opposite of Spinning, the popular pedal-to-the-music classes created and launched by Jonathan “Johnny G” Goldberg in the 1990s.

It would be a small wedding. Nothing gaudy or over-the-top. Maybe we’d even elope.

Don’t bother looking for a traditional registration desk at Arrive, the new Palm Springs boutique hotel.

The Festival of Books is upon us again, and we’ve got reading on our minds.

Is it Pilates? Yoga? Martial arts, meditation?

California’s Midcentury design legacy has an interesting way of sticking around.

It’s time to get the upper hand on the weeds in your yard.

A year after a devastating breakup, I decided to make a radical change and packed up and relocated to a place where no one knew me.

It started out as a 1970s shed-style home with wood shingle cladding, brick pavers and small windows.

I had just come out of a nine-year marriage and was reentering the dating world.

Spring is finally here again, and it’s time to celebrate.

We want to see your Southern California drought garden in all its low-water glory.

California’s drought is prompting more than turf removal and environmentally friendly plantings.

Although drought conditions continue in California, the annual lineup of spring garden tours continues, with many showcasing low-water solutions.

Despite four years of drought, it’s a good time to be a plant in Griffith Park.

We want to see your Southern California drought garden in all its low-water glory.

In the age of Snapchat, Tinder and texting, it shouldn’t be surprising that permanence isn’t a strong suit for many of us.

Some of the world’s most influential architects have designed homes for Pasadena residents.

Turf removal can help you save water, but it doesn’t mean you have to surface your landscape with rocks and gravel.

Easter is almost hippity-hoppity here, but if you make like a bunny there’s still time to create some of the cutest eggs around, no dye necessary.

A home goods and decor shop located near the ocean doesn’t have to involve heavy doses of aqua tones, coral and shabby chic.

It wasn’t a long thing, just a handful of weeks in November and December broken up by his trips back East and those big holidays that cropped up too soon to be spent together.

If Lionel Richie came out with a line of pianos, no one would be surprised — after all, the pop superstar who’s sold more than 100 million records usually performs while sitting at a keyboard.

Learn about wildlife, butterfly habitats, runoff management and more at the 13th Theodore Payne Native Plant Garden Tour on April 2 and 3.

Three months after things ended with a man seven years my senior but none the wiser, I was ready.

I ran blindly out into the streets of Hollywood. I just ran and ran. “Where did I park?!”

The Santa Barbara International Orchid Show returns this weekend with blooms from more than 50 orchid exhibitors and vendors from around the world.

Almost from the moment that the Cunninghams saw the Los Feliz home that they would eventually buy, they knew that they wouldn’t use the spacious dining room for its intended purpose.

Hotels have always been a source of design inspiration.

Gardeners grow from seed for a variety of reasons.

While mother’s telling you to hold out for the Prince on a white stallion, there are plenty of chances for the Scoundrel to make his moves.

As Frank Gamwell walks through his 1939 Woodland Hills home, pointing out the undulating reflection of pool water traveling up the steeply pitched ceiling, the leaf-like wrinkles of the extraordinary copper sheath roofing, the various visual tricks and touches that make this house not just a place to live but a space to experience, his pleasure is written all over his face.

Johanna and Andy McElfresh are the kind of couple who work well together.

This dream house is all about outdoor living.

Ceramic artist Stefani Gruenberg had more than saving water in mind when she and husband Peter removed their large sloping lawn in Westwood.

Takeo Uesugi, a landscape architect who melded the principles of traditional Japanese gardens to the modernism of postwar California, where he carried on his ancestral legacy as a 14th-generation Japanese gardener, died Jan. 26 at his West Covina home after a long battle with cancer.

This Valentine’s Day, I celebrated a brand-new relationship — with my Nest Learning Thermostat.

Would making an appointment to nap in a sleeping pod convince you to take care of your sleep-deprived self?

You can certainly go the chocolates-and-flowers route this Valentine’s Day.

There’s no need to break the bank on Valentine’s Day.

No chimney? No problem.

When I began seeing Gina I was guarded. I had been hurt a few times in the past like most of us.

The exhibition “The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887-1920” is making its only West Coast stop at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

According to one survey, nearly 85% of respondents said having sex was an important part of Valentine’s Day.

I seem to be the 13- or 14-month relationship queen. My last three ended right at this time.

Monday marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year, the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar.

You may not recognize William Krisel’s name, but you know his iconic Palm Springs Midcentury Modernist houses.

Forecast to be one of the strongest on record, the effects of this winter’s El Niño on Southern California has locals stocking up on umbrellas, parkas and, for the more fashion-conscious, stylish rain gear (hello, waterproof motorcycle boots).

Every February, thousands of Modernist fans from across the country flock to Palm Springs for Modernism Week, a 10-day celebration of midcentury architecture and design that takes place Feb. 11-21 this year.

I didn’t like my adolescence in Los Angeles.

Make it, and they will come.

Bestselling author and organization guru Marie Kondo writes of decluttering, organizing and cleaning house with the kind of fervor usually reserved for religious sermons and political rallies.

More than 60,000 visitors are expected to converge on Palm Springs for this year’s annual Modernism Week, running Feb. 11 through 21.

Rain chains, or kusari-doi in Japanese, represent design’s holiest of grails — a utility both functional and beautiful.

I was living in Los Feliz, a stone’s throw from Griffith Park.

Pierre Jazraoui felt more than discouraged.

For photographer Gray Malin and tech exec Jeff Richardson, home is where the art is.

The art of quilting has always had a social component in the form of bees and other gatherings, and the Modern Quilt Guild’s QuiltCon is carrying on this tradition.

“Dad, I think you’ll be happy to know that I’m dating a rich girl for a change…” Ever since childhood, and especially when my son started to excel at sports, I made it a point to be his biggest fan.

What’s hot for 2016? Here’s your guide.

Do you have a knife block with vertical slots at home?

Many midcentury aficionados are familiar with the Case Study Houses sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine (1945-62), which commissioned major architects of the day — Charles Eames, Raphael Soriano, Richard Neutra, to name a few — to build inexpensive and efficient model homes.

What do Nepali girls forced into prostitution have in common with Scandinavian minimalist design?

Dating in Los Angeles is hard. Dating online in Los Angeles is even harder.

A certain area of Melrose Avenue long ago cemented its reputation as an interior design district, but a newcomer is helping to bring fresh energy to the street farther east.

Less stuff. Less paper. Less digital.

Dee liked painting lone, standing birds on small canvases.

How can an almost 80-year-old broadcasting building steeped in Hollywood history relate to how we work and live now?

Feeling blue? How about pink?

Perhaps your neighbor is an Anglophile and has invited you to a Boxing Day party.

If you, like many Southern Californians, changed your landscaping substantially in light of the drought — took out lawn, put in hardscape or a large amount of decomposed granite, for example — you may have been in for a rude surprise when the El Niño-related rains started to fall this week.

One of the most effective, yet least expensive, defenses against El Niño is the humble sandbag.

Housed in an expansive warehouse across from Bestia in downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District, the new H.D.

Our first interaction was brisk and routine, even obligatory.

Production designer and art director John Iacovelli has worked on sets for TV spectaculars (“Peter Pan”) and series (“Ed,” “Babylon 5”), feature films (“Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”) and scores of stage plays, but the Emmy winner’s most theatrical — and personal — interiors can be found in his 1927 Atwater Village home, which is filled with furnishings and memorabilia from his decades-long career.

It’s Dec. 26 — do you know where your mojo is?

Plenty of architects dabble in design/build projects.

You did all that holiday shopping. Now you need to face all those bills. Gulp.

The tiny house movement shows no signs of slowing down.

Luxurious scented candles, sophisticated reed diffusers and artfully arranged dishes of potpourri are a thoughtful hostess gift and a necessity for the house proud.

I have always been a romantic.

We sat in 405 traffic after making the foolish decision to drive to the Griffith Park Observatory at 6 on a Thursday night.

Now you can trim the tree with more than traditional red and green baubles; disco balls, rustic animals and “Pantone pink” ornaments are taking center stage this holiday season.

It’s a comforting ritual for many Angelenos — a gathering with friends who share a bottle of wine and partake of the camaraderie that sustains them during the workweek.

Multifaceted sleeper sofas can serve as an instant guest room — or as close to one as you might get if you don’t have enough beds to accommodate overnight guests.

He took me to a park bench on our first date.

Got clutter?

Wreaths are about as symbolic of the holiday season as twinkling fairy lights and an inflatable Santa in the driveway.

The holidays are here, and we’ve got plenty of gift ideas to keep everyone happy.

The holidays are here, and we’ve got plenty of gift ideas to keep everyone happy.

I met him on OKCupid and with our first words it was love.

Carrie Brown is best known to her clientele as the woman who resurrected the 125-year-old country store Jimtown, eight miles outside of Healdsburg, Calif., in the vineyard-rich Alexander Valley.

It’s that time of year again.

Taking the Reins, an equestrian program for at-risk girls, received a $23,000 grant to build a kitchen for its seed-to-skillet program, which helps young women learn how to grow and prepare their own food.

No amount of Gustavian furniture, flamboyant wallpaper or Tony Duquette-inspired decor can mask the dark history that permeates Greystone Mansion.

Still shopping? If there’s a techie in your life, we’ve got a few suggestions for holiday gifts.

Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake is an essential part of the connective tissue that links downtown and Hollywood.

Lucite doesn’t get old.

“Looking. Learning. Thinking. Feeling. Making.

Californians could be justifiably proud earlier this fall when the State Water Resources Control Board reported that for the three steamy months of summer, the state had not only met Gov.

Though glassblowing techniques have remained largely the same for centuries, the world’s tastes have changed.

I never know how to describe my relationship with Ken.

Three hundred fifty-seven “likes” on a photo and I just cared about one.

“Sending direct messages on Twitter is the easiest way to confirm that someone is not to be trusted,” my friend declared over brunch, causing me to choke on my $18 Bloody Mary with a mini-cheeseburger garnish.

The nighttime ritual has always been the same for Emma Sanchez Paulsen and her three sons: They pile onto her bed as she begins to weave a tale.

A model wearing a T-shirt that reads “Believe in Yourself” — the “be” and “you” in red letters — embodies just one of new premium denim line SLINK’s body-positive messages.

“What do you love about your apartment?”

When homeless families arrive at the new San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission in Northridge, they are greeted by cheerful original artworks on the walls, cozy club chairs and stylish accessories.

Although many events at this year’s Craftsman Weekend celebration have sold out, there is still much to tempt fans of the American Arts and Crafts movement.

It was the late winter of 2012 when I met him.

After running out of wall space, Diane Klein decided it was time for her growing collection of video art to have a real home.

The dead are coming home.

The first time I went on a date with Audrey, we met at the Jazz Bakery in Hollywood.

If El Nino rainfall predictions are correct, this fall and winter could be the answer to drought-relief prayers.

After living in Los Angeles for five years and racking up a track record of short-lived relationships, I finally caved: I joined OkCupid.

After I escape a two-year marriage to a French drummer, I head to Southeast Asia at age 35 — with my guitar.

For fans of contemporary design, the WestEdge Design Fair is a smaller, more manageable version of larger furniture fairs such as Dwell on Design and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

Tongva Park is a real-life reversal of Joni Mitchell’s familiar lyric, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

What if every time you went to the grocery store, you bought five bags’ worth of food, dropped two of them in the parking lot and kept walking?

When Emilie Davidson Hoyt and Rob Hoyt moved to a traditional home in Pasadena, they were torn.