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Land covenants are land-use restrictions between buyers and sellers, or between partners. They're attached to the property deed and are recorded at the local county courthouse. However, protection of covenants is up to the new owner, and the covenants can be easily overturned

A conservation easement is a type of self-zoning, where you guarantee some land-use activities and prohibit others by relinquishing certain landowner rights to a monitoring and enforcing agency (such as a local land trust organization or the U.S. Forest Service). There are easements guaranteeing property will never be logged, will always be reserved for agriculture or will remain undeveloped.

Conservation trusts are another level of protection, where you either donate or will your property to an existing trust, or set up your own. Trusts are nonprofit corporations with a charter that defines the uses of the land it owns or controls. Starting and maintaining your own trust can be challenging, even for a cooperating neighborhood group.

Jesse Wolf Hardin

Hear more from Jesse in "Bringing Nature Home, " Page 128.

Sneeze-Free Trees

Many commonly planted landscape trees are male trees that produce large amounts of pollen, but no fruit or seeds. While these "litter free" male trees seemed more desirable than female trees, Thomas Ogren argues in his new book Allergy-free Gardening (see MOTHER's Bookshelf, Page 104) that planting so many pollen-producing trees around our homes has dramatically increased our exposure to irritating tree pollen. Here is Ogren's Top 10 list of pollen-free landscape trees.

1. Female juniper trees Also called Red Cedar; example: 'Pendula Virdis'

2. Female (fruit-bearing) Chinese Pistache trees

3. Female Ash trees Example: 'Summit' ash

4. Female Red Maple trees: Example: 'Autumn Glory'

5. Nonflowering olive cultivars Example: 'Swan Hill' olive

6. Female mulberry trees Example: Weeping mulberry

7. Fruit-bearing, female Hollies Example: 'Sparkler' English holly

8. Female poplars Example: 'Thieves' poplar

9. Female decodar cedar tree

10. Female Silver Maple trees Example: 'Northline' silver maple

Fast Food Fine Read

Just prior to the initial release of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal, a representative of the book's publisher, Houghton Mifflin, told Publisher's Weekly the company had ordered a large first printing of the book (while declining to say exactly how big). Houghton Mifflin seemed a little overly optimistic given Nation was Eric Schlosser's first book attempt and the book was about an industry whose success was based in blandness.

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