Garden Design

Lots of things can spark horticultural inspiration, but there's nothing like visiting gardens to really get your creative juices going. Luckily, here in the Mid-Atlantic we have public gardens of all stripes from which to draw ideas. Some have year-round interest. Others, like the William Paca Garden in the heart of historic Annapolis, are at their best early in the season. "The garden is in full bloom in spring," says Molly Rideout, director of the Paca Garden. Columbine, fringe tree, rose campion, pot marigold, native azaleas and flowering dogwood all froth through the walled, 2-acre space.

Most gardeners have a weakness for flowerpots, and temptation is everywhere. Interest in container gardening has never been greater, and manufacturers and importers of pots of all kinds are scrambling for shares of a rapidly growing market. No other accessory fits so effortlessly into a garden in so many interesting situations. A couple of well-placed pots on the front steps bring the garden up to the door. Containers make it possible to grow flowers on a deck or balcony. Pots of flowers can be used like decorative punctuation marks in a garden, formally ornamenting the crossing of garden paths, emphasizing the corners of a flower bed or standing -- like great, blooming statues -- at the ends of perspectives.

Some people think that there is nothing sadder than a garden in winter. I used to think this, too, and it depressed me a great deal to have nothing to look at once the "growing season" had ended. That was when I discovered that my garden had no bones.When deciduous leaves have been shed, and the last blossoms have been killed by frost, what remains are evergreens and architectural features. These are what give the garden its strong, enduring and sheltering elements -- they are its "bones."

Mother Nature is smart. She knows how to keep our spirits up even when the nights are closing in. Just as the colors fade from the garden, she cranks up the volume on the trees. First the dogwoods (Cornus) begin to tinge crimson. Then the maples (Acer) glow peach and tangerine, as though washed in sunset. Then practically overnight, the Ginkgoes (Ginkgo biloba) switch from kelly green to flawless saffron. "Ginkgo's awesome," says Rob Ditmars, manager of Tuckahoe Nursery in Centreville.

Dolores C. Hoover, a retired floral designer and avid gardener, died of congestive heart failure Thursday at Good Samaritan Hospital. She was 76 and lived in Monkton. Born Dolores Marie Clayton in High Point near Forest Hill, she grew up on a family farm in Kingsville. While attending a neighborhood party, she met her future husband, Charles Dennis Hoover, who was entertaining guests as he played guitar. As a senior at Towson High School, she married him the day before her graduation in 1952.

It's nearly March. Your New Year's resolutions were pitched out weeks ago. But a vow you made last August, the one inspired by sweeps of lavender and gold- and red-fleckedgrasses along roads, by clusters of Shasta daisies and china-blue salvia in friends' yards -- that vow remains.You resolved to have more than sod and sidewalk on your little corner of the earth in 1997. You resolved to have a beautiful garden. And now is the perfect time to plan it. The problem is, you don't know an aspidistra from a hole in the ground.

* Nancy Lancaster, 96, an American-born socialite who had been an international influence on interior and garden design since the 1920s, died on Friday at her home near Little Haseley, Oxfordshire, England. A native of Virginia who moved to England in 1926, she helped create what is popularly known as the English-country look. This school of interior decoration is characterized by sun-bleached chintz, vibrant wall colors, a casual mix of furniture from various historical periods and an atmosphere of disheveled coziness.

The pretty pictures in the catalogs that are arriving by the armful about now need not be the only floral pleasures for the winter gardener. Treat yourself to a membership in the Fresh Cut Flower of the Month Club (flowermonthclub.com). Here's more balm for gardeners in winter. How about looking at gardens in the comfort of your home? See The New Garden Paradise: Great Private Gardens of the World (W.W. Norton, $59.95), a lush new book by Dominique Browning and the editors of House & Garden that tours 35 of "the world's most exquisite examples of cutting-edge garden design."