The high point of the 3/4-acre Hayes garden in Kirkland affords an expansive view through a moongate and on to beds of perennials that divide the old lawn area.

I've been struck by how often the answer is something like, "I knew nothing about gardening until I joined an arboretum unit." Then the gardener goes on to gush about plants studied, gardens visited and friendships made. The Washington Park Arboretum should be proud of all the fine gardeners it has educated and all the beautiful gardens it has inspired throughout the Puget Sound area.

In this case, the inspired garden is on a gentle hillside above Lake Washington in Rose Point, one of Kirkland's oldest neighborhoods, and belongs to Dianne and Lenny Hayes. It's a comfortable melding of California-style outdoor living, a woodland to play up the towering old Doug firs, and a plant fancier's playground. Throw in a koi pond, moongate and meditation cottage and you have a uniquely personal and lived-in garden, tended with loving care.

It's hard to believe that this garden of water, flowers and focal points used to be mostly grass and rhododendrons.

The garden surrounds a log house, built in 1910, which was the first house in the north Kirkland area. It was built as a summer cottage, its owners traveling by ferry from Madison Park to Kirkland. Despite a neighborhood of mega-houses growing up around it, the log house retains its charms and spacious, leafy garden. Perhaps this is because Dianne has lived in the house her entire life except when away at college. She worked in the garden over time, but became a passionate gardener just seven years ago. That's when she joined an arboretum unit. "I got the bones of the garden from Mom," Dianne says. "It used to be a huge, circular bed of begonias, a big lawn and lots of old rhododendrons."

The begonias are long gone. The 27 Douglas firs remaining (four or five have been lost to wind storms or taken out over the past 40 years) are the thread of continuity between garden past and present. Dianne has planted a series of shade beds around them, using foxglove, hostas, heuchera, ferns and brunnera. Despite the trees' messiness, Dianne can't imagine the garden without their height and stature. "They give context and scale to the garden, plus I love the texture of their trunks," she explains.

When a friend first saw the minutely scaled and perfectly detailed cottage that Lenny Hayes built for his wife Dianne in their Kirkland garden, she exclaimed to Dianne, "You must really be loved!" The hut is just big enough to hold a yoga mat, bookshelf and comfortable chair.

In the sunnier areas of the garden she indulges her love of color in shades of pink, yellow and purple. "I wanted beds with color themes," she says, "and I tried to keep the hotter oranges and reds in the upper garden." The plants are a companionable mix of special ones Dianne has tracked down on jaunts to local nurseries (she especially loves vines) and more familiar perennials and roses. "I like unusual plants, but I love the common ones, too," she says.

The old lawn is now divided with berms, flowery beds and pathways coated with hazelnut shells that crunch satisfyingly underfoot. The shells, purchased at the Redmond Saturday market from Holmquist Hazelnuts, are a wonderful warm brown color, and they compact well as people walk on them.

The old cabin, built in 1910, was the first house in Kirkland's Rose Point neighborhood. This newer addition sports what Dianne Hayes calls a "trinket wall," a collection of found and built objects that add to the personal feel of the garden.

This is clearly a lived-in garden. Though Dianne is a native Northwesterner, the couple has adopted a California style of outdoor living, no doubt helped along by recent winters in Mexico. They begin with breakfast on the deck, and stay out most of the day. Their front porch is roofed; sky chairs and a hammock hang from its beams. The hot tub has its own gazebo, and the large deck in back, built around one of the largest firs on the property, is roofed, screened and replete with chairs, fireplace and serving cart. It all seems designed for a pleasant combination of snacking and napping.

Right off the deck is the large koi pond, filled with fat fish swimming in long, slow loops. The pond was one of Lenny's early garden projects, and a friend passed on a passel of koi when he moved away. The fish used to struggle to survive hungry herons, but now the herons are kept at bay by five resident eagles who routinely swoop over the garden.

A large koi pond is one level below the deck, where the fat, glossy fish luxuriate in the protection from predatory herons provided by patrolling eagles. A starry blue campanula drapes over the edge of the pond.

Paths lead out from deck and pond into the garden and a series of undulating beds. As you walk through the tall, self-seeded groves of foxglove, it is easy to feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland going down the rabbit hole. The gently sloping contours of the garden and the thickness of the plantings give a cozy sense of enclosure. The slightly oozy feel of fantasy only increases when you come upon a tiny garden hut, surrounded by ferns and foxglove, with driftwood railing and stained-glass windows. Lenny, a retired policeman, built the cottage for Dianne, and it is where she reads garden books, does yoga and meditates. The interior is just large enough to hold a chair, yoga mat and bookshelf. "Lenny scaled it to me," says Dianne, smiling, "and I'm short."

The couple's son was married beneath the moongate three years ago. The passion vine planted for the occasion climbs vigorously over the curve, nearly obscuring the view of the meditation cottage in the background.

The couple got the idea for the design from a cottage they saw a few years ago at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. Made of log ends set into concrete, the hut has the air if not the reality of a stone cottage. The driftwood came from a friend's cabin on Whidbey Island, and the stained-glass windows were original to the kitchen of the old log house. The light-filled cottage is wired and heated, and commands a view out over the garden and through the moongate. Foxgloves, cottage and moongate conspire to create a dreamy feeling of fantasy in this quiet, old garden, but I'm sure to Dianne and Lenny it represents projects and hard work, as well as barbecues, yoga and hot-tubbing.

"Our favorite thing to do in spring when it is cold and crummy out is to take a 3 p.m. break, put on a pot of coffee, build a roaring fire in the outdoor fireplace to warm up, and assess the work we've done so far that day," says Dianne.

The moongate visually separates upper and lower gardens, and was another of Lenny's projects, built with plans and a video ordered from a KCTS-TV program. Three years ago in high summer their son was married in the garden beneath the moongate, which Dianne planted for the occasion with one of her beloved vines. The passion vine (Passiflora) still drapes over the gate, scaling the upward curves with its lobed leaves, grasping tendrils and curiously exotic flowers.

Valerie Easton is a horticultural librarian and writes about plants and gardens for Pacific Northwest magazine. Her e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com. Mike Siegel is a Seattle Times photographer.