Split personality: Cottage garden? Asian garden?

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It's a love story, the way John and Sone Durnan created a garden.It's the story of two people -- one Irish, one Korean -- who never had a yard, who knew nothing about plants, but who took a weedy unkempt plot of earth and turned it into a romantic place to stroll, to sit and read, talk or admire flowers and foliage throughout the seasons.It's yin and yang, friendship and love, hard work and relaxation, cooperation and serendipity rolled into one.Nowhere is that more apparent than along the narrow wall that splits their Sacramento, Calif., garden in two.On one side, the thatched roof -- fashioned from bundles of rye hay -- combined with the relaxed yet abundant gardening style epitomizes cottage gardening.Creeping fig covers most of the white-painted wall. A wiggly stick fence holds red flowering cannas and gray fuzzy lamb's ears. Roses throw their long thorny canes over geraniums, ferns, lavender, daisies. Flowers spill from a window box. A fountain gurgles gently in the middle of a small lawn.But walk through the wooden doorway to the other side and suddenly you're in the humble abode of a Korean peasant.Sauce pots stand snugly beside the front door. A small Buddha sits on a wooden plank platform beneath a rice-paper window. Potted pines flank the gravel-and-flagstone walkway. The look is very spare. The only splash of color comes from the orange/red pagoda standing sentinel nearby.The Durnans never had a garden before. Sure, they cultivated plenty of houseplants, but never had their own yard. Of course, it didn't look like it does now when they moved into their home seven years ago.The house had been a rental for years and the yard was mostly weeds and dead grass. The deck and overhang were rotted and falling apart."It was pretty dismal," John says. Sone smiles and shakes her head in agreement, adding that it's almost hard to believe it's the same yard.They tackled the front first.They learned about plants, soil mixes, about climate zones, drip systems, how to build fences. Together, they hauled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of soil, rocks and other materials into the garden.They searched for plants, talked to nursery staff all over town. They agonized over how to create the look they wanted, but feared that high costs would prevent them from achieving the look they wanted."Then we realized things kept mysteriously falling into place. We'd find exactly what we wanted on sale. After a while we just had faith it would happen," John says.Even though the back yard is small, the Durnans created a series of vignettes that flow from one to another via a series of pathways.You can stand in the center of the garden and turn slowly around and enjoy a different, yet gorgeous view: white Adirondack chairs on the English-style deck/pergola off the back door; a formal brick walkway that leads to a garden of long-stemmed roses, geraniums and crape myrtle; a wooden bench tucked against the corner of the fence where the Durnans sit and read or talk; an orange/red pagoda; a streambed where the water tumbles down through a series of pools."We had to move the plants many times," Sone says as she snips off spent flowers, "because we didn't know about shade and sun needs.""Sone knows immediately when plants are unhappy, and finds out how to fix it," John says, picking up mid-sentence where Sone left off.They often play a game where one leads the other through the garden pointing out new flowers and attractive foliage. They discuss new ideas, improvements, problems. Days later they repeat the process, but take a different route through the garden.When the garden was finished, Sone summed it up best. Looking at the Korean side of the wall, she said it made her homesick.(Contact Pat Rubin at prubin(at)sacbee.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)