What does your garden say about your personal style? Whether you know it or not, your garden declares, in a whisper or maybe a shout, your take on the world.

Gardens, as other art forms do, offer an opportunity for self-expression. Like a set of sculpting tools, the elements of garden design can be employed to shape our gardens to express our dreams. Those elements include the layout of the garden: the arrangement of paths, beds and open space. Other elements are the plants, materials and accessories that carry out the design.

Art is an expressive element. The art you place in your garden reflects your style just as much as the art you have in your home.

A handmade object, whether it is a ceramic pot or a sculpture, adds a personal touch. How you put it all together determines your style. What we create in our gardens expresses our feeling about the world around us.

Express yourself, and stay on a budget

You can express your style and still stay on a budget. Use salvaged materials. Teach yourself to build stone walls. Buy small plants and learn to propagate others. Spend money where it will have maximum impact, such as beautiful stone paving or a gorgeous specimen tree.

And invest your time taking care of it. A modest cared-for garden beats out a grand unkempt one every time.

Defining your style

Most people have the ability to create warm, livable interior spaces, but go blank when extending that taste outdoors.

The design rules are not that different, but the materials and expansive space are. You can't learn it immediately, but the great thing about garden making is that you don't have to do it all at once. And gardens are easy to alter as your ideas change; you don't have to knock out a wall as you do in a house, for example.

What is personal style? Your garden reflects you: your needs, your sensibilities and your passions. As you design, allow space for these in the plan. Gardens are never done. Over time, your garden can be a vehicle for deepening your passion.

Vision of antiquity

Deb Campbell, who has always had a love for antiques, had a vision for her Newcastle backyard, a small space 20 feet wide by 70 feet long.

To extend the feeling from inside to out, she created "inspiration boards," a montage of photos showing ancient walls and paving from around the world: India, Spain, Morocco and Mexico.

Campbell worked with a stone mason to re-create the atmosphere she felt deeply about.

She incorporated architectural fragments from the Music Hall Theater, a Spanish Baroque Revival theater built in Seattle in 1929 and demolished in 1991. Set into stone walls, the fragments reinforce the sense of antiquity in her garden.

The small backyard is now a world far removed from suburban life, a courtyard with ancient-looking walls embracing the artifacts. Stairs descend into a sunken area to give the illusion of a secret room; fountains splash with sound as water skips over the carved surfaces of the Music Hall pieces.

Campbell has scouted nurseries for unusual plants, so now horticultural riches join the architectural ones. She describes the result as not any one locale, but as "a mythic place in my mind."

Old and new meet

Another gardener, Carol James, in Kirkland, combined the old and the new.

Apple trees planted a generation ago shade an existing lawn reshaped into a circle. The trees continue to provide a green screen from the street. Contemporary furniture on terraces composed of concrete pavers gives an up-to-the-minute air. A circular vegetable garden divided into wedges brings a modern feeling to the age-old art of growing food.

James updated the ornamental plantings, too, and wished for plants that would surprise her. The result is a fresh garden in an old neighborhood. The wide variety of plants brings a changing array of bloom and foliage throughout the year.

Out with the old

A couple on Mercer Island combined their passions to create a new garden around a home they had lived in for 17 years.

Larry Asher, an advertising-agency owner, appreciates strong design. Marcia Dare loves plants and plant sales. When their lawn mower broke, they ripped out the turf in the backyard. A new pathway that swoops and curves through the space adds a bold gesture, particularly important because the garden is often viewed from the deck above. The path provides a framework for the low-water-use plants that will thrive on the sunny site.

Fall is a good time to work on reshaping your garden. Work in between the rainstorms and be ready for the brave new world in the spring.

Phil Wood has a degree in landscape architecture and designs and builds gardens. Write to him at thegardendesigner@seattletimes.com. Sorry, no personal replies.