Dishwasher tablets

Dishwasher tablets

Whirlpool Corp., which makes Affresh cleaning tablets for clothes washers, has a new product for dishwashers and garbage disposals.

Affresh Dishwasher and Disposal Cleaner targets food residue that causes odors. It’s safe for septic tanks and plumbing as well as dishwashers and disposals, the company says.

To clean a dishwasher, you run the empty machine through a cycle with one Affresh tablet in the main dishwasher detergent tray and another in either the prewash tray or the bottom of the dishwasher.

To clean a disposal, you place a tablet in the unit, run hot water over it and then let it sit for 30 minutes.

A package of six tablets has a suggested retail price of $5.99.

The product is available at major home appliance dealers and at www.affresh.com.

Landscapes with a twist

“Avant Gardeners” just might shake up your perception of green spaces.

The book focuses on 100 surprising landscapes created by designers who set out to make a statement. The landscapes exemplify what author Tim Richardson calls conceptualist landscape design, a method that uses a central concept to define an outdoor space and combines natural and manmade elements to give the space a modernist and often witty twist.

The result is landscapes such as Place Youville in Montreal, a shady residential plaza featuring a geometric pattern of sidewalks reminiscent of the many walkways that traverse the city; Heiner-Metzger-Platz, a water garden in Neu-Ulm, Germany, with curtainlike sheets of water that appear to be suspended from metal rods; and the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in London’s Hyde Park, an engineered granite channel that continually changes the flow of the water and the resulting effects.

“Avant Gardeners” is published by Thames & Hudson and sells for $34.95 in softcover.

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