A wedding gift 46 years ago was the genesis of Claude Graves' rosy obsession. From a dozen Jackson & Perkins hybrid teas, given by the mother of the groom to landscape the newlyweds' home, sprouted a collection of up to 300 bushes in a Richardson back yard.

A decade of quantum technological leaps mean today's designers have in their hands a virtually bottomless toy box of new materials and methods. Now advances are not just industrial — they're green. Eco-friendly paints and adhesives, water-driven machinery, precision lasers, even organic powder coatings for steel are all relatively new technologies borne of the industry's desire to balance style and stewardship.

Decide to become a homeowner and, inevitably, you'll have to confront your credit score. You can try to improve your odds of qualifying for a home loan by saving more for a bigger down payment, but your credit score is the most important factor in determining what interest rate you'll pay — or whether you qualify for a mortgage at all.

This time last year, I was vacationing in Provence, at the height of lavender season.

In an ideal world, pesticides would never be needed in the garden. In the real world, they occasionally are. That doesn't mean you need harsh chemicals; pesticide is anything that kills a pest, from DDT, which kills just about every insect, to baking soda, which is effective against certain fungus diseases. If you decide a pesticide is absolutely needed, choose and spray the material with utmost care to avoid harm to the environment, to yourself, even to the very plants that you are trying to protect.

Bold and sculptural plants are the hot look for container plantings this summer. Here are five ways to get the look.

Sometimes beauty is in what you don't see. Cutout designs have made negative space a hot commodity in the home, from laser-cut tables to paper doll-like curtains. For that, thank science: High-pressure water jets were originally conceived as an efficient, eco-safe tool in the lumber industry, but the technology was quickly adopted by other industries to cut steel, glass and plastics.

Have the rolling bar cart, but no moves in the decorating department? Take notes from interior design and entertaining expert John Bassignani from Haven home shop in Victory Park.

Perhaps it's fitting that a food product — the seedless grape — was the image picked for a major anti-sunning campaign. Gardeners are among the most at risk for developing skin cancer. All that weeding and watering, mowing and mulching was once considered a happy way to build a tan. But years of sun exposure can have a terminally dark side.

If your kitchen feels inefficient or cluttered, here's good news from interior designers: Even the oldest kitchens can become streamlined, attractive work spaces without major remodeling.

At a time when the housing market remains in a slump, consumer demand is growing for energy efficient homes that are kinder to the environment. And it's not just individual homes that are going green. Increasingly, it's entire neighborhoods.

CHERYL DIAZ MEYER/DMN

Patsy Camp of Dallas has been collecting and decorating her home in patriotic memorabilia for about 15 years.

At Patsy Camp's house, even Santa Claus wears the stars and stripes. From Memorial Day until after Sept. 11, the home's interiors are swathed in vintage bunting, old banners, flags and uncountable items sporting red, white and blue.

I'm thinking of that serenity prayer about accepting what you can't change and changing what you can, while trying to decide where the utility boxes that just sprang up outside my picture window fit in.

Switching to efficient bulbs saves energy, but it also can create a design challenge. Swirly compact fluorescents stick out visually, don't work with traditional clip-on shades and can cast different colors of light than their incandescent counterparts. Manufacturers are aiming to solve these issues with new products that address the aesthetics of CFLs, the industry abbreviation for the bulbs.

Set amid the lakeside estates with lush, manicured lawns is a property that is another kind of green. Margie Haley refers to her 1 ¼ -acre property on the west shore of White Rock Lake as an urban forest. She and husband Dr. John Haley, an ophthalmologist, are out to prove they can be environmentally friendly and live a more sustainable lifestyle, yet retain the white-collar comforts to which they are accustomed.

Many of us have one, though we might be reluctant to talk about it – a small outdoor corner or oddly shaped edge resisting our best efforts at beautification.

Taking a dip in a backyard pool has never looked so refreshing. Today's pools aren't all the energy guzzlers or chemical soups of the past — like cars, new technologies have created efficient systems to treat and clean the pool, as well as light and heat it.

If you want to eat dinner from a clean surface, you might try your bathroom. A study being released Wednesday found that kitchen sinks have more germs than bathroom sinks. The study also found that three-quarters of American kitchen cloths and sponges are heavily contaminated with harmful bacteria, meaning proper clean-up can be difficult.

Design with deliberation is the key to a memorable garden, according to Paul Fields of Dallas' Lambert Landscape Co. Mr. Fields considers gardens to be an art form, and it's one he has mastered. Take a look at some of his designs, and get his landscape design wisdom.

DayNa Decker, an ex-Kim Dawson and Ford model, has traded the runway for her namesake luxury fragrance line. Check out her new collection of candles, oil lamps and scent diffusers.

Reviews of Beyond the Windowsill, The Garden Designer, and Over the Fence with Joe Gardener.

Keep your fingers crossed. Mercury Design Studio, Austin's ultra-mod and affordable home and accessories shop in the 2nd Street District, is in talks to open some Dallas digs.

Sure, designer Tomi Pratt loves the million-dollar budgets with which she sometimes gets to work. But she brings just as much enthusiasm to projects with limited budgets.

Despite our heat, lilies put on a show the year after they're planted, and continue to do so for years to come. Fall planting helps them get firmly established in time for the next round of hot weather.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Brad Pitt toured the construction site of a house in the city's Lower 9th Ward that is based on the winning design in a competition he launched to help the area recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Leta Bailey's landscape began evolving in 1950, when her Dallas home was constructed and Preston Road was still a dirt thoroughfare.

Their flowers are immaculately white and heavenly scented, but gardenias can be heartbreakingly deceptive.

A love of crafts and old things led Lisa Johnson to create home decor items from old wine barrels -- from candleholders to lazy susans and wine racks.