When it comes to your plantings, I'd tour some local gardens. If you are near a major city, a botanical garden, or if nothing else available that fits within your time constraints, you'll often find better nurseries have display gardens. If there is a landscape architect in your area, you might even find paying for an hour or two of his/her time for a few suggestions if not an actual plan is worth your investment. You can do the work yourself after getting sound, studied ideas. A tree, especially something as potentially large and long lived as an oak in the front is a lifetime commitment, your life and likely a few of the next generations. You want to be sure you will appreciate its shade, leaf litter, roots in the lawn. I'm not wild about the idea of much besides simple evergreens close to the house, at some point that house will need maintenance and you don't want plantings in the way and to stress over. The biggest mistake I made with the gardens in my first home was perennial beds bordering the house - there is no way a contractor doing assigned work can adequately protect them. As for hydrangeas, I love them but not immediately at the front door for their bare deciduous stems to be front and center all winter, only full and lush in Spring and Summer. Homework, research for your specific climate, it will pay off in the long term...

There are pros and cons to both types of tubs and resurfacing. Honestly, as someone who sells acrylic, it's just as durable as cast iron is if you are just using it as a tub. It's really not easy to scratch (unless you get one that has not be surfaced, which are the very, very cheap ones), it's not going to peel or become dull unless you soak it in bleach for long periods of time (please, don't). They are made incredibly well now. They hold heat at basically the same rate as cast iron, according to the studies done (this is why you get a double layer tub!). Spidering in a jacuzzi is typically from a lack of care, use of salts and caustic cleaning materials and other factors- or the fact of how thin the top acrylic is, which would mean its probably not actually one of the top of the line jacuzzis. Cast iron is heavy. It's durable, but they need resurfaced and their coating is typically just as easy to scratch as acrylic. Plumbers, as a general rule, don't like dealing with them because they are heavy and awkward. The surface of a cast iron tub is very easy to damage. The tub itself will last forever, but in a lifetime, you will have to keep resurfacing. If you take care of acrylic properly, it will last a lifetime and probably only need redone once when it starts looking dull. However, coating it with acrylic will probably look strange. Acrylic is formed to certain shapes during the making of the tub and I think a top coat of it would look a bit strange. I would probably get enameled steel if you are against acrylic. Several companies sell fairly good enameled steel options. However, you will run into the resurfacing problem again over time with the steel, as well. As a general rule, don't buy from Ferguson. They are more expensive than most and don't give quality for their prices. This post was edited by EmilyDesign11 on Tue, Feb 3, 15 at 14:57

Ok now we have something to talk about. First the crane flies will die soon and not return until next March. The more of them you have in your house the fewer there are laying eggs in your garden, so...just sayin'. Personally I ignore them and let them die where they die. My daughter, on the other hand, wants to move away when she sees a bug in the house. So I have to put up with her screaming. She's graduating this year, so she'll soon be gone. Mosquitoes are an issue. They breed in ANY body of water. They can breed in the cut off tops of bamboo, inside a coiled hose with water in it, any pond or bucket of water, rain gutters that are blocked or do not fully drain, or anything else that holds water. Drain everything you have control over and encourage your neighbors to drain anything that might hold water. If you have to leave a dog watering bowl out, we went with a 5-gallon bucket and put a piece of mosquito dunk in it. Those dunks really work to prevent mosquitoes as well as helping to keep the bucket clean from mold. I'm a little ahead of you with raking oak leaves. We're getting to the tassle stage so looking forward to no more raking. Watering, mowing, and fertilizing will work. You don't need a catalog of lawn care products to shop with. But you do have "clover" and dollar weed to deal with. Both of those pull out extremely easily if you catch them early. If you have real clover, then it doesn't but the oxalis/black medic with the yellow flowers does pull out easily. Or you could try the blue bottle spray pictured above. Just spot spray first to see if your St Aug dies. It can be sensitive to some weed killers and amazingly tolerant of others. If it survives a week without browning out, then you likely don't have Floratam St Aug. If you have floratam, then you have to go with the black bottle and purple label stuff. Read the label very carefully if you have to use that. The label says not to walk through it so you have to go backwards and end up at the faucet to turn the hose off. Then you're likely stuck there, so plan your spray route. Also you can only use is once or twice a year. Choose your time carefully. Be sure you have all the weeds up and growing - then blast them. The killing effect takes several weeks, so be patient. Spraying again soon after the first spray is a waste of time, money, and is against the lawn of the label. Spot spray as much as you can to just kill the weeds in the immediate good turf. Then let the St Aug spread. Repeat next year. General St Aug care...Water deeply and infrequently. This is the same for all grass. Deeply means 1 full inch every time you water. Infrequently means no more than once per week with temps in the 90s. That means ALL SUMMER. If you get temps in the 100s with low humidity, then water every 5 days. Infrequently also means once every 2 weeks with temps in the 80s. You're not there yet. It means once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s. That's about where you are now. If it rains, delay watering until the grass looks like it's getting dry. Mulch mow every week when the grass starts growing. ALWAYS mow at the mower's highest setting. ALWAYS. There is never any reason to mow St Aug lower than the highest setting. Weld your mower at the highest setting so your spouse or neighbor kid doesn't try to do you a favor and mow it low. Fertilize three times a year with synthetic if you want to use synthetic. First would be Memorial Day, then Labor Day, then Thanksgiving. If you want to use organic fertilizer, then you can do that any time. If you go with organics, don't listen to the Dirt Doctor from Dallas. He has good organic intentions, but he will sell you waaaaaayyyy more stuff than you really need. He's a salesman and pushes product. All you need is a bag of corn meal, corn gluten meal, or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). If you're doing organics right it will be inexpensive, easy, and like autopilot. If you listen to the DD, he'll have you at the nursery every weekend picking up some formulation of compost tea, molasses, or whatnot. You don't need it. That's all there is to it. If you want the nicest lawn on the block, or if you're having problems with getting the green color you want, then get your soil tested at Logan Labs in Ohio. Forget about TAMU tests. The $25 test at LL is much better than $50 worth of testing at TAMU. The simple tests at TAMU are comparatively unhelpful. Read some of the soil test threads here at this forum and check out the type of reply they get from morpheuspa. He's a soil test genius and will grace you with the benefit of his knowledge for the price of admission - free.

We have a couple of Texas gardeners here and I'm sure one will fine tune best directions for your zone, but first - This plant has been forced into early bloom (maybe Easter of Mother's Day in mind) so greenhouse grown. Put it in the shade for now and out of wind, protected, it won't be used to real life outdoors - actual sunshine, wind, even varying temps. Don't plant it today, give it some adjustment time - several days. It's not going to be happy in Texas afternoon sun so some sun in morning, or dappled shade/sun would be best for it when planting. It does look like you have 4 separate plants there and containerized to make a full display. I could divide and plant individually this time of year in my zone, but I'm wondering if Fall wouldn't be a better time for you to do that with your summer approaching (which will be a good deal warmer and brighter than my own). This type of hydrangea would likely bloom blue or with blue overtones in acidic soil, pink in more alkaline soil. I'm going to guess yours is more on the alkaline side. I don't tweak the PH of my own (which is acid so I have blues), I just try to grow healthy plants and the color is up to them, easier that way ;) I don't like Miracle Grow fertilizer, I think there are better. But if you have soil of average fertility with some organic matter in it, they made need no fertilizer and they don't need it at planting time. Your greenhouse hydrangea has likely been fed plenty up to now, you may want to give it a rest... Spacing is difficult to guess, the grocery/florist/box store hydrangeas often are not identified varieties so mature size a question mark.... I'm sure you'll get some more information specific to your climate, but for right now...don't do anything but water, and place it someplace out of sun - it probably has not been outdoors until you bought it and brought it home and you don't want to burn it before it has time to toughen up a little.