For the first time in four years, all of the judges for the Great Gardens Contest agreed on the top winner in the small gardens category. But even a consensus winner can make a misstep in her garden, and get lucky, too.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette photos Beneath her trellises, Lorna Secrest installed wood planters alternating with boxwood hedges. Click photo for larger image. Complete List: 2006 Great Garden Contest Winners

In eight years, Lorna Secrest has turned a long, narrow, overgrown city lot in North Point Breeze into a shady retreat that's short on color but overflowing with texture, unique plants and vertical and horizontal visual interest.

But even judges who raved at her skill and artistic eye couldn't help but scold her a little for using a highly invasive ground cover in one of her containers. Six years ago, Ms. Secrest planted Houttuynia cordata 'Chameleon' in a wooden planter along a fence. Although the multicolored plant usually spreads aggressively by underground rhizomes, hers has never jumped to nearby beds.

"People have had a lot of trouble with it, but it's really pretty. I think it's too shady there" to spread, she said, adding that she generally avoids invasives in her garden and in ones she designs or maintains.

In the rest of her garden, Ms. Secrest, 47, is more often good than lucky. Partial to weeping trees and shrubs, she has used them to anchor beds, screen bare areas and provide transitions along its winding paths. Among her nursery finds are blue Atlas cedar and weeping forms of cherry, pea, pussy willow, beech, Norfolk pine, white spruce and tiny hemlock.

The trees' shade and that from a 25-year-old pin oak have grown deeper as they have matured, limiting her choices of subshrubs, perennials and the occasional annual. But where some gardeners would pine, she has thrived.

Lorna Secrest enjoys the abundant shade she helped create. Click photo for larger image.

"I don't prefer a shade garden -- I didn't have to plant those trees. I don't have to have millions of flowers. I like the trees, the shrubs, the texture. They're less work, and they look nice in the winter, too."

A furniture designer, woodworker and graduate of Bidwell Training Center's horticulture program, Ms. Secrest drew and built several iron-and-cedar gates but did not begin with a garden design.

"Everything had to be where it is," she said simply.

Selecting and searching for plants to fit a preconceived design may cause gardeners to miss surprises at the nursery, she said. As an example, she cited Japanese plum yew, a low-spreading shrub that can be found at Sestili Nursery in Oakland. She was one of the few gardeners willing to give it a try and uses it almost as a groundcover.

Another happy accident was 'Black Dragon' Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica), a dark evergreen shrub she discovered in a Philadelphia nursery where she stopped after delivering furniture nearby.

"They come out with so much new stuff. I'm a junkie -- I have to have it even if I can't afford it," she said, laughing.

	This cedar and iron gate was designed by Lorna Secrest with an art deco-like look. Click photo for larger image.

Ms. Secrest bought the invasive 'Chameleon' at a nursery, knowing little about its destructive nature. It's still sold here sometimes, as are other invasives like porcelainberry, bamboo and loosestrife. Invasive plants are non-natives that can harm native populations and become impossible to eradicate. Nursery owners should think twice about selling plants that can take over a garden or, worse, spread to woods or other undeveloped areas.

Even as a novice gardener, Ms. Secrest was willing to experiment. When she bought her first house in Brighton Heights 15 years ago, she made the rounds of nurseries, chose plants she liked, "read the tags and took a chance."

"I had pretty good luck. If it didn't work, it died," she said.

She sold the house to Jack Needham, who expanded and enhanced it -- and won first place in the small garden category in last year's Great Gardens Contest.

After Ms. Secrest moved into the Point Breeze house with Ron Yoder, they bumped out the kitchen and tore down a leaning garage. The back yard was a blank canvas but for the pin oak, a rhododendron and lots of weeds and brush.

Over the next 2 1/2 years, Bob Viviano of Deck the Yards built a shed and trellises, and Tom Tamaro installed a paver patio and main path back to the shed and compost area. With Mr. Yoder's help, Ms. Secrest planted her nursery finds and built planters and secondary paths of sandstone. Ironwork artisan Andrew Jacobs of Indiana, Pa., created the art deco-like gates based on her designs.

On the trellises, she planted trumpet vine, akebia vine, Dutchman's pipe, clematis, wisteria, Japanese climbing hydrangea (Schizophragma hydrangeoides) and true climbing hydrangea.

Ms. Secrest has only one other invasive, English ivy, covering most of the front yard. She won't take blame for it -- it was already there when she arrived -- but she did weed it and maintain it. It's the ultimate low-maintenance ground cover, she said.

And no scolding judge can disagree with that.