It's hard to say if Charles Price and Glenn Withey are better known for their artful ways with perennials, their symphonic use of color harmonies, or their leading role in developing the internationally known Bellevue Botanical Garden perennial border. For the past several years they've served as caretakers of the E.B. Dunn Historic Garden in Seattle's North End, and collaborated with Margaret Roach, editor-in-chief of the magazine Martha Stewart Living, on her own garden in upstate New York.

They are certainly two of the Northwest's leading garden designers, their names bandied about so often it's tough to keep straight which first name goes with which last name. In person, however, the distinctions are clear. Partners in life and in business, both grew up in the Seattle area. Price is the tall, dark, patrician one, his intensity softened by a calm, studious manner. Withey is shorter, fairer, quieter, but not so quiet as to mask an acerbic sense of humor. Both are great talkers, grasping for just the right word to describe a fragrance or color, waving their hands about to sketch imaginary gardens in the air. These gardens in their minds tend to be huge and grandiose, kind of like Versailles, but filled with native plants.

They met when working for a local landscaper in 1983, and are quick to point out they've never done lawns, but from the start concentrated on plant combinations, container plantings and increasingly on design. In those early days, they were heavily influenced by British garden authors Gertrude Jekyll, Christopher Lloyd and Penelope Hobhouse. It wasn't the flowery style they emulated but rather the architecture of the gardens, the repetition of plants, and the superb plantsmanship so integral to British gardens.

"We got a reputation for perennials," laughs Price, explaining they were rabid plant collectors who were regrettably poor, so couldn't afford hedging. They spent their money on 4-inch perennials and manure. They made their first garden at Withey's mother's house in Kenmore, turning it into a half-acre laboratory as they tried out and learned about as many different plants as possible.

From the beginning, they formed a productive and complementary team. "Charles had a more developed aesthetic," says Withey, "and I knew more plant material." Withey would buy the plants, and Price would try to find a place for them. "I always wanted to make a picture," explains Price, "and to find a purpose for each plant." He was the first to learn to just say no, realizing the important thing isn't the plant itself but how to use it in combination with other plants. As their gardening life unfolded, however, the roles have changed. Now Price is the one who pushes to try new plants while Withey counsels simplicity and repetition. Withey is the businessman, because such details cause Price to fall apart. "I'm terrible at paying attention to time — my internal clock is way off," says Price. "A watch is bondage." Both are self-described "visual junkies" devoted to a garden's more sensual aspects of color, movement, texture and scent.

"We think an awful lot alike," Withey says of their design process, although he could be commenting on how the two tend to finish each other's sentences. A first step on any project is to work together to draw up plant lists, and then Price does the drawings. Together they meet with clients, asking a great many questions to ensure that the client articulates what is really wanted. They do admit, however, to once telling a client their best advice would be to move.

Withey and Price designs are predicated on the style of the house, and the garden's environmental conditions. "It's possible to be environmentally sensitive even in formal gardens," Price emphasizes. "You could use sword ferns and clipped native spirea." A successful garden should unfold and draw you in, closer and closer, until you're looking at the tilth of the soil. Mostly they want the plants they put in to be grown well and to thrive. Withey and Price often stay involved over the years with the gardens they design, tweaking the results from time to time. They characterize their garden style as eclectic, for each of their designs is suited to its own individual location and client.

In the late 1980s, the Northwest Perennial Alliance undertook the design, installation and maintenance of a perennial border at the Bellevue Botanical Garden. Price was asked to be lead designer, and was joined by Withey and NPA members Bob Lilly and Carrie Becker. The four set out to plan and plant what grew into a tremendous volunteer endeavor, with little budget. "Youth and ignorance" are Withey's answer to how they dared undertake a border on a scale as grand as those they used to study in British gardening books. After seven years of increasingly difficult politics, Withey and Price dropped out of the project, but by then the border's reputation for skilled flamboyance and well-chosen plants was firmly established. It had been written about admiringly both nationally and internationally. Today the pair describe the border as an adolescent in need of a bit of discipline. They are designing a new entry garden for the Bellevue Botanical Garden, and are writing a series of articles on border design for Horticulture magazine.

As curators/caretakers of the Dunn Garden for the past four years, Withey and Price live in the cottage on the property and are responsible for maintaining the garden around the house. An 85-year-old Olmsted-designed garden, it is on the national historic register. Part of their work is to bring back neglected areas, replacing aged plants and ridding it of invasives such as English ivy and Portuguese laurel.

"We came to gardening because we love plants and the natural world," says Price. It is the change that takes place in gardens, both seasonally and over time, that keeps them excited about their work. "We don't admire static gardens — we always think of the plants. A Japanese Zen garden is just a landscape until the rocks grow moss and lichen. That's what brings it into the realm of gardening."

Valerie Easton is manager at the Miller Horticultural Library. Her book, "Plant Life: Growing a Garden in the Pacific Northwest" (Sasquatch Books, 2002) is an updated selection of her magazine columns. Valerie's e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com.