Tami Louco, a muralist and painter, brings an artist's sensibility to her garden in Marshall.

"I don't have a botanist's approach. I don't like the idea of a whole bed of one thing. I like the way textures look against one another and various heights. I like height, too."

Judges for the Great Gardens Contest liked what they saw in her garden. This year, the first time she entered, she is a co-winner in the large garden category for her 2.2-acre creation.

It wasn't exotic plants that caught the eye of judges from the Post-Gazette and Botanic Garden of Western Pennsylvania, which co-sponsor the competition. The combination suburban/country spread is filled with common plants such as peonies, phlox, boxwood, obedient plant, butterfly bush, Siberian iris, roses, viburnums, nepeta and 'Little Joe' pyeweed.

The beds closest to the house are the most formal, starting with a herb garden in front, bordered by a sandstone path that Mrs. Louco and her husband, David, put down themselves. Mr. Louco also built the beautiful dry-stacked stone walls that give order to a path and terraced beds behind the house. The grassy path links the driveway and a new patio garden in back. Perennial plants and shrubs form most of the foundation plantings, with a few rose bushes thrown in for color.

The most informal bed, packed with wildflowers, is farthest from the house, next to a field and wooded hills that provide a borrowed view for the family.

All of the plantings harken to another day, which was one goal for the gardener. She and her husband built the center-hall Colonial only six years ago on what was formerly a cornfield. But its simple trim and weathered clapboard exterior suggest it is much older.

"It would really look weird to have a tropical [planting] motif [around the house]," Mrs. Louco says. "I wanted [the plants] to have historical references."

The self-educated gardener says she was influenced by visits to historic gardens like Plimoth Plantation and by garden writer Piet Oudolf. She especially likes his naturalistic approach, leaving plants to overwinter in the garden instead of clearing them away in the fall.

Having constructed gardens at two previous homes the couple owned in New England and Philadelphia, Mrs. Louco had some idea of what she wanted to do with her current property once the house was completed.

"We sited the house in relation to the existing trees, but it was a pretty blank slate," she says.

Mrs. Louco got the idea for a peony walk in the front of the house from one she saw in New England, where it is uncommon to plant shrubs around the foundation. She had a vague idea for her landscape design but no formal drawings.

"I was thinking of a border along the field, a more formal border along the driveway, and then a lot of woodland shrubs in the woods."

Those plans had to be altered somewhat once the realities of critters and watering such a large area came into play.

"I decided the only watering I would do would be in the back [around the patio]. I didn't have in mind the patio garden originally."

The greater part of the garden is not watered during dry spells. Deer are also a problem.

"I kind of leave the border on the field side as the free buffet," she says.

The long bed has become the home of nepata, black-eyed Susans and other plants the deer skip -- most of the time.

"You kind of hope you see it before they eat it," she says of some of her blooming plants.

Of course, the deer do a job on her hemlocks in the winter and the holly, too.

"You can tell how bad the winter is by how much the holly is getting attacked," she says.

Mrs. Louco plans to expand the garden and may install a fence around part of it, where she wouldn't have to worry about deer browsing and groundhog damage. She is already perusing the Internet for plants she could put there in the spring. But she doesn't want it to look more planned than the rest of her garden:

"I want people to wonder, 'Did they plant this or did this just happen?' "