For roses? The Fort Worth Botanical Garden. Awesome collection. For Japanese Gardens? The Fort Worth Botanical Garden. It's like another world in that Japanese garden. For a communion with nature? The Fort Worth Botanical Garden For no admission fee? The Fort Worth Botanical Garden For everything else? The Dallas Arboretum. It's well-designed & refined. Both are EXCELLENT at what they do, but as different as the cities themselves. You must visit both. Don't let the Dallas Arboretum admission price hinder you, it's worth it. We are so lucky to have these two cities right next to each other. Randy

We live in the Mid-Cities area (Hurst, Euless, Bedford) and we enjoy Calloway's Nursery (http://www.calloways.com). They have locations all over North Texas (Addison, Plano, Flower Mound, Dallas, Fort Worth, Hurst, etc). According to their website, they go by Cornelius Nurseries in the Houston area. Here is a link that might be useful: Calloways Nursery

Thanks for the comps guys. Maecat - The house has a typical rear entry garage. You enter the back of the house from the garage or the back patio. We use our garage for darts and ping pong. We can fold up the ping pong table and still get both cars in the garage...so that works great. Susan - We bought the stone from Whiz-Q stone in south Fort Worth. There website is www.whizq.com. Great group of people. I live in Carrollton and wanted to buy from places I found in Lewisville and Frisco and they were not friendly to the non-commercial buyer. Whiz-Q was just the opposite. I called ahead and asked if I could get some samples and when I showed up they had gallon zippys with my name ready to roll. The stome I bought was Arizona Extra Small Cobble for $160/ton. The final bill was for around $850. It was $640 for the rock. $85 for delivery. $45 for the bags. Then tax. I thought it was very fair. As for how much you will need, they have a calculator on there website to figure this out. You enter the square footage and the depth and it tells you how much you need. Ours worked out perfectly. It was a bit of a drive to go to there but it was well worth it to check it out and talk to them. Plus you can see their products in person. Desertfix - The PVC is run underneath the deck for future low volt lights. I should have done this before the rock, but I am not sure if I am going to do this or not. Tresw - Thanks for all the help from your posts. You have been fantastic with your own personal threads plus your replys to others. How is the salt working for you??? Our system has been very easy. We have checked our CYA and it has been in the 70s lately but everything else is in check.

We are also getting ready to put in new kitchen and bathroom counters, but we have pretty much decided to go with recycled glass counters. There are two companies/brands we are considering -- Vetrazzo and IceStone. Both will be able to direct you to certified fabricators in your area.