WRITTEN BY VALERIE EASTON PHOTOGRAPHED BY MIKE SIEGEL

	The peach-and-blue-tiled fountain sets the fiesta tone behind the house, an area planned as a Mediterranean stroll garden by designer Phil Wood.

Perhaps her extreme garden makeover was influenced by the two palm trees that punctuated all that green, or by the house she was having built in Baja. Whatever the inspiration, most of her lawn is gone, replaced with stone, gravel and low-maintenance yet luscious plantings. Stucco walls shelter her house, russet-hued flagstone paves much of the ground, and hardy, unusual plantings fill the beds. Painted and ceramic iguanas crawl up the walls or perch on the roof, fountains bubble merrily and blue-glazed pots are filled with hot-colored foliages and flowers.
 

Little vignettes evoking warmer climates tide Susie Marglin over until she can return to her home in Mexico. Broken bits of tile and beach shells fill in between the stones to brighten up the garden on rainy days.

Marglin's garden is one of five opening their gates to the public June 27 to benefit the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra. The fourth annual Symphony of Gardens tour displays Bellevue's garden virtuosity from Clyde Hill to Medina. High notes include a rose fancier's collection and a cottage with outdoor rooms delineated by vine-draped arches. Orchestration for the tour includes not only a range of garden spaces and styles, but musicians and artists performing at every stop, plus a finale of refreshments at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens.

Colorful streetside plantings and a heavy wooden entry gate draped with an iguana set the tone for Marglin's unique new garden. "The concept is my romance with Mexico and less-thirsty plants," she explains. The front terrace is warm and private, a perfect spot to draw a cobalt-blue metal chair to the little round table or to linger by the splashing fountain. Sky-blue pots flanking the front door are planted in dark phormium and chartreuse spears of Monterey cypress. The front beds hold copper-colored roses, dark-purple Nandina domestica 'Plum Passion,' and the two tall palm trees left over from the garden's earlier incarnation.
 

	The garden is composed of the colors red-headed Marglin loves best — lots of blues in ornamental grasses and decorative objects, golden-variegated artemisia (A. vulgaris 'Oriental Limelight') and the butterscotch-colored rose 'Mrs. Oakley Fischer.'

Out back, designer Phil Wood came up with a Mediterranean stroll garden of meandering pathways and short, dry-stacked stone walls. The paths crunch with tawny gravel, custom-mixed to match the amber tones of the stone. The warm notes continue with a peach-and-blue-tiled fountain featuring a mural of birds, fish, frogs and dragonflies. The two stout sequoias that define the back of the garden were in place, but the mature rhododendrons and Japanese maples made the move with Marglin from her Medina waterfront garden.

Because the new garden is so much sunnier than the old, she's added plenty of drought-tolerant plants. Sedums and ornamental grasses fill the beds, while basketball-sized heads of euphorbia droop over the stone walls. A true tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera 'Aureomarginatum') is a focal point with its bright-yellow variegated leaves. On a small city lot, Marglin has created a sunny sanctuary, combining plants, paths and fountains to evoke the sand-colored warmth of a desert climate.
 

What used to be a wide-open expanse of front lawn is now enclosed with fences and mostly paved in amber stone, providing a perfect setting for the brilliant blue-metal table and chairs.

Lynn Simon's rambling, rolling, half-acre garden in Clyde Hill couldn't be more different, though only a short distance from Marglin's fiesta courtyard. Mature dogwoods and Japanese maples shade island beds carved out of the sloping lawn. Meticulously pruned and groomed, hedged in green and lush with hostas, roses and dahlias, the garden in late June will sport green and blue urns filled with geraniums and canna lilies.

Don't expect to find anything but roses when you climb the steep driveway to John and June Frost's half-century-old garden. John has lived in Medina all his life, running the Medina General Store for more than three decades and growing roses for as long as he can remember. For many years the couple traveled around the state, competing in rose shows, and their expertise shows in the pots of miniature roses grouped along the driveway and the blowsy, sweet-scented blossoms of Rosa 'Royal Sunset' near the doorway. "At first no one liked the miniatures . . . now they're more popular," says June of the plants she championed early on. Their son helps care for the thousand miniature roses and the 250 big roses that pack and perfume their hilltop garden.
 

	A spouting fish fountain greets visitors to Susie Marglin's new front garden.

Bonnie Privite's Yarrow Point garden cascades down a slope, with brick terraces, patios for entertaining, places to sit and places to eat, and pots full of flowers. French doors line the back of the house, leading to a view of the lake and the terraces that step down to the lawn and island beds. Streetside are two private, hedged spaces — one for sitting, another for enjoying the herbs and fountain.

A similar idea distinguishes Monika Jackson's garden in Medina. Her front garden is a simple, hedged courtyard. But follow the path around the house to a moon gate that opens to a large garden with a pond, patios, outdoor fireplaces and large, old trees. The deep, narrow space is overlooked by a deck, and tied together by a progression of arches laced with roses, clematis and purple potato vines.

All five gardens will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 27, to benefit the Bellevue Philharmonic. Tickets, which include directions and a map, cost $25 and can be purchased at Wells-Medina or Bellevue Nursery, or by calling the philharmonic office at 425-455-4171. The benefit's final note lingers at the Bellevue Botanical Garden, where everyone is invited for light refreshments and a raffle after seeing the gardens.
 

A three-dimensional metal lizard points the way to the front door.

Marglin brings as much as she can of Mexico back with her to cloudy Seattle, including lizards. A ceramic lizard climbs the trunk of a palm tree.

Even the grillwork on the garden gate is enlivened with a metal lizard.