Jacqueline and Warner Dravetz have made a lovely, award-winning garden by practising the three Rs -- not the usual reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic but restraint, repetition and respect.

Restraint because this is not a garden of numerous colours, but one that adheres to a palette of green (albeit a wide spectrum of shades of green) and white.

Repetition because the garden utilizes the underappreciated harmony of recurring plants and colour combinations.

Respect because the garden is designed to complement the classic lines of the Dravetzes' portico-fronted, Georgian-style house and uses reclaimed materials and traditional patterns.

The result is a garden that seems, if not timeless, certainly not modern.

The Dravetzes' garden recently won a Civic Rose Award, Burlington's city beautification award program, as well as an award for Best Organic Garden.

Jacqueline and Warner have made the garden during the 10 years they've owned the property.

Excavation around the foundation demolished the original garden, giving them an opportunity to work from a clean slate.

The only elements older than their ownership are the trees, including three wonderfully gnarled old cherry trees close to the street.

When the cherry trees are in bloom, and complemented by 500 white Maureen tulips, the spring show draws admiring viewers by the busload.

They looked at other gardens to get ideas. "We found we liked repetition," Jacqueline says. The colours of foliage and flowers repeat, as do the shapes and forms of plants.

Hydrangeas now are the dominant flower in the front garden. A standard, or tree-form, peegee hydrangea is next to the entrance, and bushy Annabelle hydrangea fill a bed next to the driveway. Lady's mantle and hosta recur throughout the garden, and sedum and ornamental grasses are other favourite species. (The back garden is under construction.)

The house is on a corner lot, next to a park, so passersby are frequent.

Jacqueline and Warner like to sit on a small patio in front of her studio (she is an artist) at one side of the house, so privacy is a minor concern. An elegant solution is a large bed at the corner of the property, with about 20 hostas among periwinkle under pine trees.

Between the bed and the house is a small, neatly trimmed, curved hedge. A small stone bench completes the vignette, evoking a garden-within-a-garden. By itself, the hedge would have provided the privacy screen, but seemed obtrusive. With the bed and bench, it becomes part of a design element.

The patio by the studio is constructed of reclaimed bricks given to Warner and Jacqueline by a neighbour. The 3,500 red bricks are laid on their sides in a radiating pattern. The traditional look complements the house.

Warner has used the remainder of the bricks in the same way for a rear entrance patio and a circular, sunburst-style meeting point of the back-garden paths.

Warner's in the marketing business, and says he has a "little bit of a construction background." His workmanship is impeccable.

The organic garden award was a particular pleasure for them.

"We don't spray anything, even the old trees," Jacqueline says. "When people use Zygon, you can smell it. If they get a disease and they die, then they die."

Wildlife seems to appreciate it. The family (they have two boys) is well-acquainted with Harvey, the resident rabbit, who leaves the beds alone in favour of the various grasses that seed themselves under the bird feeder. Cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers and the occasional possum and fox drop by.

The Dravetzes' respect isn't just for the house. It's for the environment in which it sits.

Rob Howard lives and gardens in Hamilton. Talk gardening with him from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturdays on Room to Grow, on AM900 CHML. Gardenwriter@gmail.com