The white-footed cat Sophie, charged with keeping the birds out of the blueberries, chooses instead to pause on a rock used by Pearce for contemplative moments ever since she was in high school.

Nine years ago, when Pearce and her husband, Darrell Carver, first saw it, the property was a discouraging mess on a third of an acre. The house had been rented to college guys for three years and was a warren of chopped-up rooms. Archeology revealed that avid gardeners had once worked there, but the bones of the garden were obscured by a 1970s hot tub and every color rhododendron and azalea given for Mother's Day over 50 years. A carport, sport court sprouting weeds, a jungle of tree stumps and a patch of blackberries all had to be removed before the garden could be revealed and renovated.
 

The charm of the 1933 brick Tudor is enhanced by the lawns and cottage garden around it, including a 'New Dawn' climbing rose over the door and pots filled with white geraniums skirted in blue calibrachoa.

How does an interior designer go about transferring her talent outside and into the dirt? In Pearce's case, by hiring experts, following strict color rules, and melding the style of the garden to suit the charm of the old house. She began by working with landscape architect Keith Geller to design raised beds, bring in stone for paths and steps, and determine some of the larger, structural plantings.

Geller and Pearce decided to save many of the hunky cedars, rhododendrons, dogwoods, camellias and mountain ash that ring the place, retaining privacy and creating a mature feel harmonious with the age of the house. The stone steps and walls mellow the garden into the setting, while the larger trees are a haven for a variety of birds, including herons and red-winged blackbirds that flock to a nearby lakeside marsh.
 

	A sea of Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrica 'Rubra') is backlit by the sun to highlight the tall, white lilies Pearce grows throughout the garden.

Pearce hired designers Jane Groppenberger of The Urban Gardener and Trish Eden of Eden Garden Design to move plants from the couple's earlier home on Phinney Ridge, choose new ones, and care for them. Daphnes, corylopsis, hellebores, peonies, phlox, roses and agapanthus made the trip to the roomier Eastside property. "Pamela's colors are blue and white, but we expanded those out of sheer necessity," says Groppenberger of the great number of new perennial and shrub plantings that give the garden a flourishing, cottagey feel. Although she's branched out a bit, Pearce still has rules about color, including no oranges and little pink except for raspberry. Touches of yellow, burgundy and bronze are allowed.

Behind and below the house an oval bed of exuberant plantings replaces the old sports court. The driveway was pulled in closer to the house so the deck and Pearce's office overlook the garden rather than asphalt. Designed to be looked down upon, mounds of prostrate cistus and Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii 'Crimson Pygmy') mimic rounded rock forms to lend structure as well as color and texture to the scene. Tall, dark Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium rugosum 'Chocolate') rises out of a flurry of yellow daylilies, and bristly purple-foliaged Aster lateriflorus 'Prince' carries the planting through autumn.
 

	Interior designer Pearce's Yarrow Point cottage garden is all about colors — which are allowed and which banished. The predominant white-and-blue color scheme is sparked by yellow, bronze and burgundy, with lilies, bronze flax and Japanese blood grass.

Pearce loves white lilies and has chosen them in nearly every shade of pale. In the oval bed, clusters of lilies are set off by the architectural shape of bronze phormium and a sea of burgundy Japanese blood grass.

The cottage-garden theme continues with edibles integrated throughout the borders. Rhubarb, tomatoes, blueberries, apple and pear trees consort with hydrangeas, lilies and asters. Pineapple sage attracts hummingbirds. Robins snack on the blueberries and nest in the cedars. A thick swathe of the palest hydrangeas and clumps of white and cobalt agapanthus bloom in the borders, satisfying Pearce's love of blue and white flowers. Snowy 'Casablanca' lilies tower above the white lacecap hydrangeas. 'Iceberg' and 'New Dawn' roses climb the dark brick of the house.
 

What used to be a well-worn, weedy sport court has been transformed into an oval bed with mounds of barberry and cistus adding texture while mimicking the shape of rock forms.

In springtime, the bed beneath the dogwood blooms white violets, hellebores and lily of the valley. The blue of the agapanthus is echoed in ceanothus and 'Blue Boy' clematis, with the white notes accented by daisies and silvery artemisia and senecio. Dark accents come from burgundy heucheras and the heart-shaped leaves of the small tree Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy.'

Pearce uses little color when designing interiors, and the sense of serenity achieved by the repetition of just a few colors extends to her garden. The subtlety of the color scheme is more than made up for by her love of showy flowers. "Any peony is thrilling to me," she says of the blowsy beauties that she grows in sufficient numbers for big bouquets. Pots spilling over with white geraniums, Coleus 'Black Beauty' and blue calibrachoa stir the old garden with seasonal color.
 

	Oriental and Asiatic lilies in shades of pale add height, waft fragrance and keep the white color scheme going throughout the beds and borders.

The sweetly scented lily-of-the-valley that flowers every spring beneath the dogwood came from Pearce's great-grandmother in Scotland, and the roses entwining the fence traveled from Illinois with her mother. In one corner of the border is a flat, mossy stone Pearce calls her "thinking rock," where she sat in high school when she needed time to herself. She's had the rock hauled around with her ever since, moved to her current garden by Marenakos Rock Center. "It has vibrations," explains Pearce, who describes herself as an unsentimental person, except when it comes to her freshly renewed old garden.