They promise you a rose garden. They'll also offer visits to a waterfall, koi ponds, a butterfly garden, terraces, a wildlife habitat and enough ideas to make you rush home and start digging in the dirt.

The Private Gardens of Cobb Master Gardeners 2008 Tour on Saturday has six stops: the homes of five master gardeners and the McFarlane Nature Park, which has a master gardener project.

Andy Sharp/AJC Staff (ENLARGE)

Koi fish swim at the home of Cobb County Master Gardener Ann Fritts.

GARDEN TOUR When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday Where: Six sites in Cobb County Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the gardens. Children 12 and younger free. Cash or check only. Tickets are available through 5 p.m. Friday at the Cobb Extension Office, 678 South Cobb Drive, Suite 200, Marietta. Information: 770-528-4070 or Cobb Master Gardeners Recent headlines: Big Chicken wannabes roosting in Marietta  Artists leave religion outside church door  Report due Monday could affect lawsuit against Cobb EMC     • Cobb County news

Visitors will see drought-tolerant plants and will learn ways the master gardeners save water. Plant lists will be available at each garden.

"The purpose of the tour," said Randy Threatte, a master gardener, "is really to teach the public about ways they can turn their backyard space into pretty much anything they want it to be."

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Anita McKee

320 Dogwood Trail, Marietta

• Favorite part of your garden: I have one area devoted to nothing but butterflies, although the butterflies aren't out yet. Everything I've planted is a nectar source, a host plant for either larvae or butterflies. You see the butterflies come in, lay the eggs, see the caterpillars grow, where they spin their web. ... I just love the whole process.

• Drought tip: I encourage people to plant drought-resistant plants. Don't do anything that's going to need a lot of water. Put in things that like it hot and like it dry.

• Favorite plant: I love my Japanese maples. I have some that are just gorgeous, 20 years old and they're huge.

• Hopes visitors will experience: I hope it gets people interested in gardening. I love it, it's therapy for me. I can go out and spend all day in my garden and I'm happy as a pig; I don't care if the kids are ripping the house apart. I think it brings people out of their homes. You can expand your entertainment area with gardening and bring the inside to the outside.

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Randy Threatte

998 Ashbrooke Way, Marietta

• Favorite part of your garden: Sitting in it. It's kind of a mixed garden with a steep slope. It was a challenge to figure out. If you slipped at the top of it, you would have rolled to the creek at the bottom of the hill. So, it's terraced with four different levels that break the water and keep it from being a gully. I have roses on one level, then perennials, a stone patio and a walk along the creek.

• Drought tip: Rain barrels connected to the downspouts of the house. Anybody can harvest water from their roof.

• Favorite plant: The hydrangeas. They're sort of low maintenance, the perfect plant for Atlanta.

• Hope visitors will experience: I hope they will be able to see you can garden in a drought, that you can grow things without abusing water. I have a 350-gallon cistern my husband put in, and we pump water from the creek. I've hated that creek for 21 years, and, now, it's my new best friend.

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McFarlane Nature Park

280 Farm Road, Marietta

Mary McGaughy, project leader

• Favorite part of the garden: The long sun border — a 250-foot fence along the road — that another group had abandoned and we refurbished. The park is owned by the Cobb Land Trust. Everything is supposed to be native plants. There are various gardens around the park, and the master gardeners have an area that we started behind the farmhouse. There's an old pump house, and we've cut out privet and expanded the beds.

• Drought tip: We don't have a source for a rain barrel, such as shower water, so you're going to see what plants make it. By the end of this summer, you'll know what's a real hardy drought-tolerant plant and will see what happens with minimal watering.

• Favorite plant: That's too hard to say. We've got shrubs and ephemerals and woodland plants. Oakleaf hydrangeas are pretty drought-tolerant ... the bottlebrush buckeye, when it blooms.

• Hopes visitors will experience: Just to see one of our projects, what native plants are coming up and how they look. The farmhouse the caretaker lives in is really interesting.

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Cathy Lacy

4284 Alison Jane Drive, Marietta

• Favorite part of your garden: My koi pond. I like to sit out there and have a glass of wine in the evening and listen to the birds and watch my fish, and there's no stress left in my body. My husband built this pond for me when I found out I had cancer ... and it has become a total sanctuary for me, a nice place for me to rest and have some hope for the future. I'm on the wildlife habitat list, so I've got the typical raccoons, possums, bunny rabbits, chipmunks, frogs and turtles — and lots of birds.

• Drought tip: I add water beads, water polymers. Throw some of them in with plants, they absorb the water and help keep them watered.

• Favorite plant: Bear's breeches. They're a big-leafed tropical plant and have a huge spike of flowers that look a lot like foxgloves. They're gorgeous.

• Hopes visitors will experience: I call my garden "the common man." I didn't have a designer or landscaper. This is a garden anybody can have.

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Elaine Sheldon

1381 Cameron Glen Drive, Marietta

• Favorite part of your garden: 25 roses — all different colors, either hybrid teas or David Austin roses. I have this wonderful, sunny side yard and it was perfect for roses. Most hybrid tea roses are tough to grow in the Southeast because it's humid and fungus is a real problem. They take a real effort, but they're worth every minute of it.

• Drought tip: I have a 55-gallon rain barrel and run the air conditioner's condensation tube into the rain barrel. I also save my gray water. You would be surprised how much water you waste just running clear in your sink waiting for it to get hot.

• Favorite flower: Double Delight rose. It has a cream center and is reddish pink around the edges. And it's so fragrant. It's pretty and fragrant.

• Hopes visitors will experience: I hope they would see what they could do without a group of gardeners to come in and help you every week. I believe they can get ideas of plants they might grow in their own yards.

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Ann Fritts

964 St. Lyonn Courts, Marietta

• Favorite part of your garden: Probably my woodlands area, which backs up to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. I've been able to save some native plants that were on my property when I moved in and add to them. Also, I love my koi pond. I have seven big babies in there.

• Drought tip: I think it's very important to site your plants correctly and make the right plant choices for where you're planting them. If it's close to the foundation, you need to plant it 3 feet from the foundation. Plant a plant that will grow to the right size and shape so you don't have to prune it a lot.

• Favorite plant: Farkleberry, a small little shrubby tree and a relative of the blueberry. It's a cool little plant.

• Hopes visitors will experience: It's a fun place, and I hope they have fun seeing it. I also hope they learn something. For me, the most fun of my garden has been the process of creating it and learning how to create it correctly.