Purlisa: I no longer post for the pubic, but I make exceptions when people ask for me specifically. I respect & learn from honest folks like you who share about their garden. I learn more from honest folks who talk about problems in their garden, than gorgeous pics. of roses (with zero details as to type of soil & pH-level & climate & annual rainfall). That's my pet-peeve in HMF, folks just post pics, without specifying if it's own-root or grafted, zero info. on planting zone & type of soil & climate. If you click on my Houzz profile-picture , I updated to include tips on how to tell which own-roots are appropriate for which soil pH, type of soil & climate, just by looking at the leaves. https://www.houzz.com/user/strawchicago I received 8 roses yesterday 6/15 from RU summer sale, they are BIG, and some are over 2 feet tall & with buds & blooms .. very healthy. These roses are bigger & more blooms that the 7 roses I bought full-price early May. My last house was acidic clay: soft & easy to dig, with blue hydrangeas & deep-colors roses. My current house is alkaline clay: rock-hard, need a pick-ax to dig, pink hydrangeas, and roses have faded colors. Roses are much healthier in alkaline clay. My purpose of posting is to help foiks NOT to make the same mistakes like I did in my 30+ years of growing roses, and 110 own-root varieties. My B.S. is in Computer Science, minor in Chemistry, so I want to use my background to help folks. If you have sticky & dense clay, skip the Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate), since it hardens clay further. MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY IS RARE, EXCEPT IN SANDY SOIL (this is from the booklet when I got my soil tested by EarthCo.) My sticky clay soil was tested exceedingly high in magnesium. Skip the molasses, I tested for many years and it attracts rose-slugs, plus sugarly stuff LOWERS soil pH, sugar sours things fast. Azomite is similar to dolomitic lime (both have pH 9), but Azomite works faster. Digging deep, and remove the dense & icky clay & rocks at bottom helps with drainage, so acidic rain water don't sit at the bottom to rot roots. If your clay soil is acidic, COARSE sand (paver's sand) is good on top. BAGGED SAND AT STORES IS VERY ALKALINE, so it will neutralize the acidity of rain. Niels in Denmark, with hundreds of roses, put sand on top of his acidic clay. Skip the alfalfa, it becomes VERY ACIDIC like Kimchi if decays in acidic rain water. Many folks report roses breaking out in blackspots after "sour alfalfa tea", it's like watering roses with sauerkraut or Kimchi-water. At least Kimchi or sauerkraut has salt to control the acidity, but I already tested acidic-alfalfa-tea and it made leaves thinner, thanks to its acidity. Since my clay is rock-hard alkaline at pH near 8, I use acidic pine bark (pH 4) to fix my clay. People root roses in sand. I read a book by a CA rose-grower on the coast (mild temperate climate), he bought a land filled with sand and converted into a rose nursery, to sell cut-flowers !! Here's an excerpt from Houzz when I googled on clay .. folks in CA have heavy abode clay, while I have dolomitic clay. But both are mineral-rich clay. Kittymoonbeam have over 100+ roses in Southern CA, wrote this in Houzz .. from my experience I agree with her 100% .. I killed plenty of roses with acidic organic matter in the planting hole. And Roses Unlimited's tip of 1 cup of alfalfa meal mix-in WORKS ONLY FOR THEIR ALKALINE-TAP WATER inside nursery, but NOT FOR OUTDOOR ACIDIC RAIN, with pH 4.5 in my Chicagoland, and even more acidic rain on the East Coast. Kittymoonbeam - "I just came from a soils class by a local nurseryman. He said DON'T add organic amendment into the soil. The plants only tolerate it, not prosper in it. The short of it is that eventually it breaks down and rots causing oxygen problems in the root zone. A NASA guy said NO terrestrial plant wants to live in ground up dead tree. So most potting soils are only good for maybe 5 months, then they start harming plants. The growers know the plants can only survive a short period before they decline in that mix. Potting up in non amended soil causes no harm. You can grow in 100 percent sand as long as you water and feed often enough. Strawberry leaves from plants grown in sand were twice the size of those in the premium potting mix! There are no overwatering issues. Why the change from propagation in soil to wood products is a long story. However, we've all been taught to do it. But no one ever used to in the old days. Disneyland removed their riverbed soil and replaced with amended soil. After a few years, they took it all out and purchased new riverbed sandy loam and now they only mulch on top. This is all new to me but that's the way it was for millions of years. The organic stuff stays on top where it breaks down and travels to the roots below. Roots want a purely mineral soil with as much oxygen as they can get and still be moist." Kittymoonbeam. Lauren (Los Angeles, 10a, Sunset Zone 19) - kittymoonbeam, that does seem to make sense. Limited personal experience has also showed me that top dressing compost with shredded leaves/mulch produced better results than than simply mixing some compost into the surrounding soil" Lauren

I suggest bromine for a hot tub. Go to your pool supply and purchase a Spa Vac, it's a round device with a bag that'll hook up to your garden hose and vacuum the debris out. Golf is correct, never go heavy on your chems, put them in the water in small quantities. It's much much easier to take care of a 20000 gallon pool than a 500 gallon hot tub. Have fun, hot tubs are AWESOME once you've got the grip on maintaining a warm body of water. I've really missed the one at my last home since I moved to our new place a few years ago. I love my new pool/spa/waterfall combo but nothing beats the instant satisfaction of hopping straight into the hot tub, the comfortability of the seating, and the number of jets in an acrylic hot tub. See ya, Kelly

Thank you @HU-257553069!!! :) By 1/3 you mean all same size slabs but all set subway tile style to every third? just trying to make sure I understand what you describe... I looked at Permacon too but the Colors were busier and not as light (the ones in the display).. I thought lighter would look nicer. There’s the Blu smooth in Beige cream too but I wasn’t too sure if there was actually too much yellow for the cream/grey/orangy/browny colour of the house. yes was thinking of adding a sectional in the top Right corner with a table and high potted planters. i Also want to add 2 lounge chairs, and a fire pit... not sure where to put everything. the hot tub will be on the left as pictured. There will be 23 feet of interlock up to the first column (from the house). After that 4 feet from the column (as it is right now). The set up is stressing me out too. Is it okay to have more than one seating area? And to have areas that do not necessarily face each other? finally, not sure if you have an idea but I was going to do a 3 post pergola over the hot tub (with a bar facing the river) but I am thinking the post near the corner sofa will be in the way (Of people in the hot tub, on the sofa or sitting at the bar). What about a half pergola (only 2 posts on the Left, facing the left neighbo)? it would give some height, some warmth with the wood and something to hang lights to. Apologies for the really long post!!

I can't say for sure because my hot tub is from a different manufacturer. I picked up my hot tub thanks to the hot tub for one person website. I recommend you read their reviews, by the way, and on the chemistry and its use there is a separate article.