Not surprisingly, the name of the landscape architect who took drafting pencil to paper to plan our tiny corner of the planet has stuck in memory. By now, five years after our back-and-forth haggling, he has moved on a couple of times. His design, however, has matured in a way that brings those former bare-bones elements together. The redbud arches out over the shrubs and lawn, the dwarf spireas sprawl with pink color in midsummer and the perennials we've added put our stamp on the texture of the garden. And at the center of all is our favorite curiosity-the star magnolia that somehow changed a couple of years ago and has bloomed as a saucer magnolia since.

Working with plants is one thing. Trying to make them coalesce and flow into a pleasing visual palette is quite another. After a lecture by a landscape architect several years ago, he was asked how average homeowners get to the stage where they know balance and scale and color combinations. His answer, predictably, was that most homeowners can't, which is why they need professionals-like him. That is what our cover story, which starts on page 12, tries to do for you-help you identify what your landscape needs and give you the tools to decide if you will do it or if and how much professional help is needed.

There are many projects left to tackle around our home. We've built patios, privacy fences and retaining walls, but nowadays prefer to have them done so they look a little nicer, so they don't lean two years from now, so the bushes look like they belong next to one another. There are phases of the architect's plan that ares still waiting to be executed, waiting for a year when the savings show we can swing it. and if we ever run out of phases, we'll find a way to modify the previous ones. For some, rearranging living room furniture is a lifelong avocation. For others, it's the constant changing of the landscape around us - the plants we move so their seasonal changes give us the greatest pleasure.

One landscape that ebbs and flows, literally, is that of Art Kozelka, who is profiled beginning on page 20. Part of his property is a wetland that floods in rainy weather - the swamp, he calls it. Art's longtime friend Ted Marston introduced us many years ago, but it had been a while since we had sat at the kitchen table to talk gardening. As part of the interview, Art was asked to come up with five tips to give fall gardeners.

When we got together a few days later, he had not only thought about it, he'd one what writers do- he had sat down at the old manual typewriter and written three pages, triple space, the way he always wrote his columns. He said it was his first trip back to the typewriter since he retired, but he hasn't forgotten how to use it, nor the wise words he dispensed for so many years. We hope you enjoy that wisdom.