Janet Krieger, 74, is too much of an artist to have a perfect, formal garden. So how did she end up with one that has a wooden arbor with espaliered fruit trees over a central rectangular pond, flanked by identical magnolias?

"It happened by accident," she says. "That kind of thing appeals to a perfectionist. It makes it much more interesting that it's not perfectly symmetrical."

In fact, the Shadyside garden that won a special merit award in the Great Gardens Contest doesn't belong to Mrs. Krieger anymore. She entered the contest just as she and her husband, Karl, were moving this summer to the Cork Factory in the Strip District.

The new owners can't lavish the attention on the garden that Mrs. Krieger did for 37 years. When judges from the Post-Gazette and Botanic Garden of Western Pennsylvania visited, they found a few weeds and bare spots, some perennials past their prime and no annuals to color the space.

But they couldn't help but applaud what was right -- a simple design that has stood the test of time, with artfully carved hedges, mature trees and shrubs, and stone and wood hardscape in (almost) perfect harmony.

"There are lessons there for Pittsburghers," said one judge, landscape architect Mark McKenzie.

The lesson begins at the front of the stucco house, built in 1916 and designed by noted architect Benno Janssen. The tall yew hedges were pruned as blocks until about 20 years ago.

"I got bored cutting them straight, so I trimmed a pattern into them," Mrs. Krieger said. "I did it because it was fun. It's much more interesting to make curves."

Ten years ago, she and her husband planted a hedge of Korean boxwood in the back yard. It is long, straight and rectangular -- except for a series of small domes carved into the top. Mrs. Krieger said she had to prune the fast-growing hedge at least four times a year to maintain the look.

In a 6-foot-tall yew hedge in one corner, she carved a doglike beast whose head tops out around 9 feet. Mrs. Krieger also made small ceramic creatures that used to populate her garden. The only statues that remain are concrete dogs and a gargoyle.

After the late designer Everett Sturgeon designed the back garden about 20 years ago, Mrs. Krieger brought it to life with plants, fish and daily maintenance. One koi and about 60 goldfish swim placidly in the 18- by 11-foot pond beneath pink and yellow water lilies and water hyacinth. A bullfrog who moved in several years ago announces his presence occasionally.

Apple, pear. plum and peach trees were trained carefully up the arbor's posts, and joined by climbing hydrangea. Pink and purple anemone, peonies and irises sprout at the base of the arbor or in nearby beds. A large Hinoki cypress, small white pine and some columnar beeches and arborvitae form a dark backdrop.

Mr. Krieger -- whom his wife jokingly calls "my sherpa" -- helped plant nearly everything and lay the Belgian block and cobblestone paths found throughout the garden. Growing amid the stones is thyme and a pretty little light green groundcover that may be Mazus reptans.

"It just found its way in and spread," Mrs. Krieger said. "Whatever it is, it's really lovely."

She still misses her little labor-intensive garden. As she and her husband were packing to move, the eldest of their three children, Jeffrey, 51, stopped by to collect some things.

"He spent a minute or two in each room," his mother said. "I said, 'Does this mean anything to you?'

Because he had only lived there for three years, as a teenager, the house didn't hold many memories.

"'It's the garden,' he said. 'It's a lifetime's work.'

"It was lovely that he recognized it," she said quietly.