Here’s our weekly digest of interesting and useful links from around the web. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

• Retail spending is slow, but people are still spending.
• 50 years of LED tech. (via @Carolyn LaWell)
• Lichens!
• Related: Reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial drained due to algae invasion.
• Science makes it true: To be more productive, watch cat videos on the internet.
• London wants its own High Line, but underground.
• Above: Water rates are going up. They won’t stop. (via CLCA)

• 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.

Here’s our weekly digest of fun stuff we found online, now with more robots. Have a great weekend.

• Small, once-a-day marketing can be more powerful than a big, one-time only blow-out.
• 4 alternatives to leaving your business to your kids.
• We’ve got some whitepapers on engines, water management and holiday lighting. Check them out.
• The Case-Shiller Home Price Index by metro area.
• Above: With apologies to Lee Majors, the WSJ brings you the peak time for everything.

Here’s our round-up of the most interesting stuff from the web. Enjoy your long weekend. We’ll see you back here Tuesday.

• Home prices show promise in 20 markets.
• The summer drought’s impact on the Mississippi, from the air.
• Baby busters.
• The best way to share stories on Facebook. (via @BaderRutter)
• 2012 is the worst year for West Nile virus. Ever.
• Millenials are the cheapest generation.
• American homes, while smaller, are still giant.
• Three simple questions that could change the world.
• Above: A brief history of the brief history of viral videos.

America in Bloom has produced a series of videos to promote the value of plants as more than just pretty extras. They’re low-budget, and a little low-brow, but they do a great job of getting the point across.

Here’s your weekend reading list. Enjoy!

• Olympic landscaping.
• Job openings are at their highest levels in four years.
• A dealer on what Tier 4 means to you. (via @johndeere)
• Broadleaf weed primer. (via @fmcturf)
• How to get the most from your home and garden show exhibitions.
• Related: How to work a trade show.
• Above: D&K outlines its quarterly gardning srevices for the southwest.

We’re on the road this week. Brian’s in Nashville testing new Ram trucks, and I’m headed out to Chicago to visit Ball Horticulture’s display gardens.

And since country music makes better songs about pick-up trucks than it does about downy mildew, I’ll leave you with the great Tim Hus.

Special in from Richard Restuccia today is his review of “Watershed,” the latest documentary of water in the American west. Narrated by Robert Redford, the film tells the story of the Colorado River and what the future holds for the most important water resource west of the Mississippi.

Saturday was the film’s Southwest U.S Premier; the sold out event packed The Water Conservation Garden amphitheater at Cuyamaca College. Watershed is one of the best films I have seen about water and definitely hits its goal of making water interesting to consumers. …

This is not only a must-see water management winner, but a great human interest story, too. So if you get a chance to see the movie, I wouldn’t miss it. You don’t have to be a water conservationist to enjoy it.

You can read the full review at ValleyCrest Takes On.

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

• Give this list to your foremen.
• “The complement to the brilliant strategy is the thankless work of lower-leverage detail.“
• A guide to commercial property leasing practices from CBRE.
• An update on trends in outdoor furniture.
• Awesome vertical gardens.
• Above: Linkedin now lets companies use targeted status updates. (via @chris_heiler)