Some very cool stuff this week: New research examines the health benefits of green space, a big western city is raising water rates because people are saving too much water and Pittsburgh reinvents itself from a black smudge of steel factories to a champion of sustainability. There’s hope for us all.

See you next week.

• ASLA Guide to Washington’s great landscapes was nominated for a Webby. Vote here.
• Portland is raising its water rates to keep pace with lagging demand.
• The outside Rx.
• Related: New study further shows health benefits of green space.
• 6 of the coolest trees in America.
• How to choose a board for your business.
• Above: Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory opens the Center for Sustainable Landscapes at the “greenest building on Earth.”

For your reading pleasure this weekend I’ve got a few articles about snow, how Google works and some fantastic images of botanic gardens from around the world. Enjoy!

• Dust from Africa impacts snowfall in California. (via CLCA)
• Related: Thin snowpack out west points to summer drought.
• Tech’s best feature: the off switch. (h/t Warren Gorowitz)
• How Google works.
• Landscape designers have the best offices. (h/t Shayne Newman)
• The rise of the new sharing economy.
• Interesting Q&A with Travis Beck, NYBG’s Landscape and Gardens Project Manager and author of “Principles of Ecological Landscape Design.” (via NYBG)
• Above: Best botanic gardens in the world.

Here’s our weekly digest of articles, images and generally cool stuff from the web. Enjoy, and have a great weekend.

• Build your sales pipeline.
• Using sound to build a garden.
• Native plant bingo with CLCA.
• How to irrigate a slope.
• Bummer: Why trees can’t grow taller than 300 feet.
• Employee addiction.
• They’ve got a bit of universe conflation here, but this is pretty good.
• Above: GIFs of plant leaves withering.

Some cool photos for your Monday afternoon. Via the New York Botanical Garden’s great Tumblr, here’s a collection of awesome photos from Rob Kesseler and his up-close-and-personal examination of plant seeds.

Kesseler’s primary tool is the scanning electron microscope, which scans specimens with a beam of electrons and spits out a series of super-precise files that are compiled into a single image. In Phytopic, his ongoing series of images of seeds, fruit, leaves, and pollen, he coats his samples in a fine layer of gold, and then images them using the SEM. In the post-production process, he paints layers of color and texture onto the images, he explains, “just as the original plant employs color-coded messages to attract an audience of insect collaborators.” His microscopy works have been lacquered onto ceramic kitchenware, engraved in the window panes at Oxford’s Botanic Garden, and printed on silk banners.

You can read the full story here.

• What’s college for if not pranking the administration with bat guano?
• “Biomechanical trebuchets.” (via: New York Botanical Garden’s Tumblr)
• 4 leading botanical gardens to create first online catalog of all plants. (via @BatesNursery)
• Why efficiency won’t solve our water problems. (via @waterguru2)
• How to: reboot a terrible voicemail. (via @jasoncupp)
• Above: Environmental Business Award winner Mark Halla explains why and how he built a wind turbine at his Minnesota headquarters.