Beth Bolton When Beth Bolton and David Adams married four years ago, they combined their love for plants and music into a new garden. Bolton's residence in Shandon was the home she had grown up in. Under a canopy of trees, she had created a shade garden. Adams had maintained a sunny perennial garden for 15 years in Coldstream.

Collaborating, they have redesigned Bolton's Shandon shade garden into a botanic garden for shade and sun- loving plants along with background music. One major change involving installation of a swimming pool necessitated the removal of three large shade trees. Pool construction opened large portions of the landscape to sun.

Surrounding the back deck of the Shandon bungalow is the shade garden. A large pink Kwansa flowering cherry provides the canopy for a glen of green shade plants selected for foliage and flower including Japanese painted ferns, hosta, wood violets, coral bells, Lenten roses, Solomon's seal, bleeding heart, liriope, fatsia, and a spread of white impatiens. Bear's Breeches, Acanthus, a perennial producing dense spikes of purple and white flowers in the center of large deeply cut leaves, straddles sun and shade comfortably. The shade garden includes a bird feeding area well- stocked with feeders, food, water, nesting sites, shelter, and novel perches like a bronze chandelier.

Adding a pool to the original shade garden opened sunlight for a new roster of plants. Adams, a disc jockey specializing in beach music, is proud of the blasts of color in sunny perennial beds surrounding the pool.

Extensive research goes into selecting plants for the right place in their garden. The couple travels to flower shows, nurseries, and other gardens to find intriguing specimens. The Japanese snow rose, Serissa, is one acquisition they are pleased with because of profuse and continuous white blossoms from spring to autumn. The princess flower, Tibouchina, has velvety leaves and satiny purple flowers from summer to early winter. Shower of gold, Galphimia gracilis, is a drought tolerant shrub covered in yellow clusters from summer to mid- fall.

The three roses growing in their garden require minimum maintenance. The knock- out® rose has become an enormous shrub covered in deep red blossoms. The Nearly Wild is a single- flowered pink floribunda with non- stop summer bloom. The Lady Banks rose spills yellow poolside in spring and makes a green fountaining screen all summer.

Bear's Breeches handles sun and shade Tall clumps of salvia, lipstick- red, wild watermelon, black and blue, and May night, rub elbows with Mexican petunias, Rudbeckia, blue plumbago, yellow and lavender angel trumpets, and Canna Bengal Tiger. Yellow tickseed, Walker's Low catmint, portulaca, and verbena fill in spaces at ground level.

A variety of structures enhance the garden experience. A child's wooden bed frame is filled with plants. A child's pink playhouse is Adams' music studio and garden tool shed. A beach pavilion on one side of the pool provides an entertainment center with dance floor, sound system, and refreshment center. Bolton crafted a distinctive bar table by covering the top with old 45rpm records and a polyurethane finish. Friends and family sign the rafters of the pavilion.

The raised bed culinary herb garden is skirted with Mexican heather. By pooling energy, ideas, talent, and plants, Bolton and Adams have created a personal botanic garden in which to live and enjoy life.

Part of the personal botanic garden of Beth Bolton and David Adams in Shandon Velvety leaves and satiny purple flower of Tibouchina Dramatic drifts of color from Rudbeckia