Perhaps this influx of plants is the reason that, despite a recent major renovation, Shields' garden appears established and settled. Garden remodels can be traumatic, and often it takes years for old and new plantings to meld into a pleasing whole. The only clue that her Crown Hill front garden has been recently transformed is that the cedar fence is still a pale golden color, not yet weathered to the soft gray patina it will keep for years to come.

The new stone pathway continues around the house into the back garden. One of several cat statues sits nearby in a patch of pendulous pink Dierama pulcherrimum.
	Not a scrap of lawn remains in Valerie Shields' back garden, where every inch is filled with foliage and flowers bisected by stone pathways.

The façade of Shields' brick bungalow had long been dwarfed by two overgrown rhododendrons, as is so often the case in Seattle neighborhoods built and planted in the 1940s and '50s. She began her garden remodel by digging them out and donating the beasts to Kubota Gardens in Seattle's South End. But Shields didn't stop there. She dug up the entire front yard, leaving only a lone coral-bark maple.

Her next step was to hire garden designer Dawn Chaplin to help realize her goals of generous planting beds, no lawn, colors to go with the brick of the house, and a distinctive front fence. The resulting latticework now divides the front space into an outer garden and a courtyard close to the house. Crafted by Jeff Hendrix of The Wood Tailor, who usually makes fine furniture, the open-design fence allows for enclosure but also connection between the different parts of the garden. Shields cut into the brick of the house to make French doors that open from the music room out onto the courtyard, now a warm and sheltered area ideal for entertaining or a morning cup of coffee.

Chaplin designed a generous sweep of stone pathway that curves between planting beds, ending up in circles as intricate and smooth as the swirl of a seashell. These swoops of pathway extend around the house, creating a seamless transition between the much older back garden and the new front yard. You can follow the pathways from the front sidewalk all the way to the pond at the far corner of the back garden, with four complete seashell swirls providing interludes along the way. The final swirl completes itself at the pond's edge, curling around the legs of a bench placed for watching the goldfish.

Chaplin's approach to garden design reminds Shields of her composing teacher, who encourages and honors Shields' own creativity. "Dawn gave me principles and tools to think about why some things work and some don't," explains Shields of the collaboration between the two. Chaplin's design squeezed two separate garden rooms into the 25 feet from sidewalk to house, creating usable and inviting spaces.

The streetside room is planted in bronze phormium, maroon heuchera, purple barberry and the glossy, dark Hebe 'Amy' to reflect the colors in the brick of the house. The color scheme is sparked with the lime green of euphorbia and lady's mantle. Iris and Pratia pedunculata, the little mounding blue-star groundcover trimming the pathway, add blue notes.

The rich, rusty apricot of Rosa 'Just Joey' warms the enclosed courtyard and ties in with the soft yellow paint on the new French doors. Tiered dogwood Cornus controversa 'Variegata' grows along the fence, its white-tipped horizontal branches frosted in layers of white blossoms, showing why the British call it the wedding-cake tree. It is a flowery garden with a feminine feel, especially lush and full of bloom in midsummer. Yet there is plenty of structure in the strong lines of fence and curve of pathway, plus handsome foliages, to carry it through the seasons.

Shields has been working on her back garden for more than 15 years. "I've gardened everything horizontally, and now I need to go up," she laughs, pointing out the wisteria edging the gutters on the house and the climbing banksia roses and golden hop vines gilding the side and back fences. Despite the small size, Shields has squeezed in two benches, a dining patio and a pond, as well as a variety of whimsical frogs and cats. A proud Egyptian cat gazes toward the pond, a metal cat head holds a candle to light the garden in the evening, and tiles imprinted with frogs decorate the back fence. Even the new sage-green Adirondack chairs sport frog paintings. These creatures (along with Shields' four real cats) not only enliven the garden but draw neighborhood kids and piano students, encouraging them to explore.

Shields loves heuchera, collecting as many different kinds as she can find. The rosy tones of the stone pathway and brick are accented by the dark heuchera leaves as well as reflected in their froth of little pink flowers.		A goldfish pond is tucked into the back corner of the garden, the path that wraps around behind it hidden from view by a fat cone of spruce tree.

Shields has made it worthwhile to venture into the garden's far back, where an old cherry tree shelters a wooden bench and a tiny bridge crosses the pond. Even more enticing is a trail that leads behind the pond, its route hidden by the fat cone of a spruce tree, so you can't be quite sure where the trail might lead. One thing certain is that more frogs are stashed about for her students to find and count. The hidden pathway, stone circles and fences obscured by vines lend an air of intrigue and create doubt about boundaries and destination — unusual to such a small, fenced-in space. While creating a treasure hunt for her piano students, Shields has made a garden rich in fanciful details, flowery flawlessness and intimate, inviting spaces.