phasv2, You should definitely do a soil test, Auburn and A&M have very good facilities should you decide to use one. They will even tell you what to use to fix problems if they find them. Have you been to any of the wineries in our area? They are popping up all over the place and offer a ton of great ideas. I know that asparagus given the right soil will do well here, and artichokes are okay as well, both being perennial. You might also look into strawberries as you can get 3-4 years out of them, but rarely a 1st year do they produce in the home garden. Not to mention, nearly all of this can be implemented into a home landscape. If you go with some blueberries, try for 6 bushes if you have room all different varieties, from 2 early, 2 mid, and 2 late season that way you can have them all spring through summer. Or you could just get to early, 2 mid, or two late complimenting varieties. Personally I like Austin, Tifblue, and Oneill. I am planning on planting about 25 soon on our land when we get the well done, I am going to do to southern lowbush, the rest will be rabbiteye and will be planting them like that to get a consistent crop. You might want to look into things that attract bees for bluberry cross pollination to increase yeilds if you go this route.

Well, I think I finally have a good list of public gardens for my list. Here are the places I found thanks to those of you who added to this list for me. I appreciate your help. This is copied from my website. There are links to each of these on my website if you are interested in finding out more about a specific garden - the link is below - click on Texas Public Gardens in the left column. "Here is a listing of Texas public gardens and nature centers that would make a great place to visit on a side trip during your next vacation. Click on the links below to plan your next trip to see some of these beautiful gardens. If you have suggestions to add to this list, please contact us below." Armand Bayou Nature CenterÂPasadena Bayou Bend Collections & GardensÂHouston Beaumont Botanical GardensÂBeaumont Chandor GardensÂMineral Wells Chihuahuan Desert Research InstituteÂFt. Davis Clark GardensÂWeatherford Colleen Bright GardensÂWoodway Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens and Nature CenterÂCorpus Christi Dallas ArboretumÂDallas Earl Harrison House and GardensÂWaco Fort Worth Botanic GardensÂFort Worth Grapevine Botanical GardensÂGrapevine Green Acres Master Gardeners Demonstration GardensÂRockport Heard Natural Science MuseumÂMcKinney Hermann Park ConservancyÂHouston Ladybird Johnson Wildflower CenterÂAustin Mercer Arboretum and Botanic GardensÂMercer Moody GardensÂGalveston Mrs. LeeÂs Daffodil GardensÂGladewater Peckerwood GardensÂHemstead San Antonio Botanical GardensÂSan Antonio Shangri-la GardensÂOrange S.M. Tracy HerbariumÂCollege Station South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature CenterÂCorpus Christi Stephen F. Austin Mast ArboretumÂNacogdoches Texas Discovery GardensÂDallas Tyler Municipal Rose GardensÂTyler Valley Nature CenterÂWeslaco Waco WetlandsÂWaco Water Lily Collection at Civic League ParkÂSan Angelo Zilker Botanical GardensÂAustin Here is a link that might be useful: Allen Garden Club

poolguynj and other PB's thanks again for the quick follow ups and feedback on my questions and concerns. currently the PB still has his maintenance guy coming over daily to check the chemicals, brushing etc. and adding chemicals as needed. PB said that he would do that for about a month before turning it over completely to us for maintenance. natural one, thanks for your comments on the pool build. the PB was actually there for all of the stages and on site a quite often so we felt that he was on top of everything from beginning to end. as fari as the drains, personally it doesn't bother me and kinda like the contrast but that just me. what actually bothered me more was the color of the pool cleaner, it's white with a white hose and when i asked about it our PB said that to get the black one, it would be about 300 bucks more. uh, i decided the white one didn't look bad after all! also, we had a landscaper come out last week and give us a bid for some landscaping behind the pool. it was over 6800 for landscaping that i was not even going to be able to see since the back beam is raised.....i nearly swallowed my gum when he told us the price. so we are thinking now that we will reduce the size of the bed directly behind the pool, but add perhaps some windmill palms on each end to give it some character and instead, add some beds on each end of the pool so at least we can visually enjoy some of our expenses! the sun came out today so hopefully i can post some pictures this afternoon. Thanks again everyone!!!!

Harriet, I agree, and it was that way dating back to at least the 1980s, though it got even better in the 1990s. I do think Howard Garrett had a lot to do with that---it seems to me that there was a huge number of folks gardening organically in the D-FW metro area long before it became nearly as popular in other areas. I still prefer shopping down there, although at least many of the organic products are now found in stores only 20-30 miles from where we live, whereas in our early years here we had to drive 80-90 miles, one way, to find those same organic products. So much has improved for organic gardeners in recent years. I grew up listening to Neil Sperry and have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for him. His books are my gardening bibles dating back decades. I listened to his gardening show from when it first started, which I think may have been in the 1970s when I was still in high school. I read his columns. I remember when he was our county extension agent back even prior to the radio show. Then at some point I became aware of Howard Garrett too, probably in the 1980s, and began reading his newspaper columns/books and listening to his program on the radio too. To this day, when I mention Howard Garrett, Tim quips his tag line from the end of the radio show "and don't forget to feed the birds". Maybe that is why we feed the birds to this day. When Neil Sperry and Howard Garrett had a sort of quiet war between them on the radio waves, with each of them making pointed remarks about what "other people" recommended without saying one another's names, I knew who those barbs were aimed at, and I hated it. They both are fine people, with different philosophies, and I bet if they knew each other outside of horticulture, they'd like each other just fine. I just tried to learn from both of them and to find my own way to garden based on what I know and feel is important. I've always been 95% organic though, so even when Neil recommends synthetic products, I tend to let that part go in one ear and out the other. I used a miticide (Kelthane) once in the 1980s and Round-up a few times, and Bug-B-Gone for grasshoppers once in the 2000s. That's about the extent of my synthetic product usage in terms of miticides, herbicides and insecticides, but I do use Daconil to prevent/halt the spread of Early Blight sometimes. So, I guess I garden more Howard's way in terms of the philosophy and general practices I use, but from Neil I have learned so much about everything involved in horticulture that I appreciate---his knowlege of plants, pests and diseases is huge and vast and there's just no one like him. I still get his e-newsletter weekly and devour every word. If you've read and listened to Neil all along, you know that he is much less chemically-oriented than he once was. He was, after all, a product of what he was taught when he was in college and they all were taught the chemical way back then. I just happen to prefer Howard's natural way a lot more and it generally works well for most things. You know how when you have two friends who you get along with just fine, but they cannot stand each other? Well, that's how I felt it was with Neil and Howard, though I did not know either one personally. I just kept wishing they could get along and appreciate one another as much as I appreciated both of them. I guess that never will happen though. Dawn