You can have a yard, or you can create a garden. Lynn Jennings's Dallas landscape beautifully defines the difference. When she and husband David built their home 11 years ago, their focus kept drifting outward. "We designed the pool and garden area so it would be visible from nearly every room in the house. So many times, this is an afterthought--you lose sight of the fact that you should plan your outdoor rooms while you're building," she says.

Whether you're gazing out a window or dangling your feet in the pool, Lynn's garden draws you into a lush canvas of textures, colors, and flowers. "My mother was an artist, so I grew up with a big easel, blank canvases, and a houseful of paints. I really see the garden that same way. Every year it becomes a new picture," she explains.

Lynn tempers her artistic enthusiasm with an insatiable desire for planting know-how. With the help of Chip Clint, owner of Clint Horticulture, they plant to satisfy both goals. "Our friendship has grown with the garden," Lynn says. "We always pick colors first. In the front yard we go for understated elegance, but I want the backyard to be a surprise. We like to use things that are unexpected."

Color Cues
The garden's finely woven tapestry comes from careful planning, as illustrated in the large bed of caladiums bordering a portion of the pool. Instead of choosing one selection, they combined three for a stunning effect. "We take a common plant such as caladium and look at the colors within one selection," Chip says. "We take that color thread and find a complementary shade in another caladium selection." The result is companionable colors within the same plant family, producing a bright, well-planned appearance.