WRITTEN BY VALERIE EASTON

	GARY SETTLE/SEATTLE TIMES FILE
	The patterning of formal garden features is often best appreciated when viewed from above, as in these miniature parterres below the dining-room window in Mark Henry's Snohomish garden. Henry's country garden is a plant-collector's paradise rich with references to the classical Venetian gardens he so admires.

A casual remark from a designer friend first sparked my interest in formality. When I was groaning about all the time I spent working in the garden, he sympathized that, of course, my garden took so much effort because it is naturalistic. I was taken aback. Doesn't that thick medley of plants smother the weeds, cover the ground and grow up in sweet, self-sufficient harmony? Turns out it doesn't. It seems counterintuitive that formal gardens, with all those strict lines and hedging, are less time-consuming to care for than casual, plant-centered garden spaces.

Think of gardening in a pot. While you may obscure its rim by draping a vine down the side or add height with a trellis, you're nevertheless gardening in a contained, controlled environment compared to stretches of bare dirt. A formal garden of raised beds outlined in brick, crisp hedges and clearly delineated pathways is already rich in focal points, sight lines, distinctive materials and structure. The plantings are supporting players used to fluff out and play counterpoint to all that geometry.

In more naturalistic gardens, the design often begins (and critics would say ends) with plant forms and combinations. But while plant growth and change is a large part of the fascination of gardening, it also means the garden is in constant flux, a situation less challenging when confined within a strong structure. The underlying geometry that is the foundation of formality creates spaces that are easier to keep tidy and at their best year around.

Thomas Allsopp, designer of Helen Finch's charming little garden, says, "I love the Italian landscape with its soft edge . . . There is a sense of 'gentle decay,' which is part nature and part planned. It is like going into a beautifully designed interior and feeling like you can sit anywhere." Northwest gardeners bring their own interpretation to formality, adapting the style to our varied topography and iconoclastic tastes. Allsopp and Finch played with scale in her diminutive herb garden, stretching the space with a diagonal axis and lightening up cloudy days with an abundance of pale and silvery plants. Their penchant for recycling and frugal formality proves that references to a grander age need not be expensive.

The current designers of the ornate Capitol Hill rose garden and the Roche Harbor resort gardens aren't daunted by their lengthy and august histories. Rather, both are paying tradition its due while expertly enlivening the gardens with fresh, gutsy plantings. A Queen Anne hillside plays clever court to classic European ornamentation and design while flirting with a rich palette of hot-colored plantings. The quiet, elegant simplicity of Alison Andrews' garden is nearly as breathtaking as the gorgeous view it showcases.

I used to think that the traditions and conventions of formality would curtail the creativity that, for me, is the most gratifying part of gardening. But perhaps, as my yoga teacher used to say, freedom comes only through discipline. The gardeners in this issue have created gardens that suit their sites and tastes, moods and enthusiasms with no apparent dampening of creative expression. It is the yin and yang of hardscape and nature, structure and abandon, straight lines versus exuberant plantings, that makes these gardens compelling as well as (perhaps) a little easier to care for than the purely naturalistic style. And although I've never clipped a hedge in my life, I'm quite sure that my next garden is going to be every bit as much about the structure as the abandon.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle free-lance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.

More Plant Life columns