Q: What ideas do you have for creating personal style in my garden?

A: You can find many ways to add personal style to your garden. Creating style arises out of the choices we make, starting with our very first efforts at gardening and continuing until we finally lay down our trowel.

Style is so endlessly fascinating because it is the variation of common elements (well, sometimes not so common, in the case of unusual plants) put together in new ways. Think of all the music we enjoy from just a few notes on the scale.

Style is really picking and choosing from what is available and putting it together creatively to make something that suits us. All the elements of design are open to expressing your style.

What's purpose of garden?

But even before you start the design, the most important consideration is the question of what do you want your garden to do. Ask yourself what the purpose of your garden is. You most certainly have a number of answers.

Is it for entertaining friends? Providing a place to putter with plants? Having a place for children to play? Growing cut flowers or vegetables? Do you want to attract wildlife?

This is where you get to name your passions. Expressing them in your garden is what will make it most individual. If you have a family, expressing the passions of all its members will lead to a creative process that will ensure a unique outdoor space and bring the family together.

In the best of all worlds, you shouldn't have to think about adding personal style to a garden. You would just do what you love, and the style would follow. As you continued to garden, your skills and your outlook would change and so would the style that comes out of your efforts.

Layout is another important step in creating your style. Is it formal, informal or a combination of the two? Is it traditional or contemporary?

Once you make those decisions and decide what goes where, you choose materials.

Paving surfaces are one of these. Do you go for tailored, square cut stone, or are you a little more rustic and drawn to random flagstone? Do you like the informality of creeping groundcovers in the crevices, or do you want the purity of stone with no interference from chlorophyll?

Other elements to consider

Other elements are important, too. Color can reinforce style. Just as we use color in our clothing and our homes, we can extend its use into the garden with plants and accessories.

The choice of accessories can reflect the mood you want. The clean lines of metal chairs set a different tone than more relaxed wooden Adirondack chairs.

One way of confirming your style is to observe that of other gardeners. Books are a good place to do this, and one of my current favorites is "The Jewel Box Garden" by Thomas Hobbs.

Hobbs drips style and is free with his admiration of others, too. Looking at the photos in a book like this can teach you how to skillfully combine plants, pots, accessories and architecture into satisfying compositions. You probably have a garden book or two that you can revisit. Ask yourself how the gardens show personal style.

One of the joys of helping other people design their gardens is watching them develop a style.

One client studied flower arranging before she was a gardener, and her plantings are put together with an eye for repetition and variation of foliage texture and color, adding in a mix of accessories influenced by her travels to Mexico.

Another client's desire for a low-water-use garden led her to explore the variety of plants that will thrive in our dry summer/wet winter climate. Formal stonework put in by a skilled mason, and informally placed rock outcrops provide a backdrop for a collection of water-wise plants.

A couple in Bellevue spent winters in Arizona and wanted a fire pit like the one they enjoyed in the desert. It became a central feature of their garden design.

Above all, commitment to your garden will get you where you want to go. Developing style is gained through doing.

Phil Wood has a degree in landscape architecture and designs and builds gardens. Call 206-464-8533 or e-mail thegardendesigner@seattletimes.com with your questions. Sorry, no personal replies.