With more bare dirt and empty spaces than we like to see, renovated and new gardens seem pretty skimpy this time of year. Where is the garden we imagined as we planted and seeded? Unfortunately, healthy gardens can't be rushed, only encouraged to develop at their own pace. Trees, shrubs and even perennials need first to develop root systems, so sometimes plants appear to just sit there a few years. Even if you can afford to buy mature plants, they can be difficult to find or to move, and often don't take well to transplanting. What can we do while waiting for the garden to fill in, fluff up and come close to that paradise in our minds?

While there is no such thing as an instant garden, some plants grow and fill out far more quickly than others. Trees and most shrubs are marathoners, but a clever gardener can take advantage of the quick-growing sprinters to fill in until the long-haulers are doing their jobs. However, as with most cases of instant gratification, there is a price to pay. Later on you'll have to cut back and yank out baby plants, for some of these sprinters tend to take over.

Sounds a lot like human relationships, doesn't it? So often the characteristics we first admire in someone become the very traits that later drive us crazy. We choose these sprinters for their assertive and voluptuous natures, but in a few years we get bored, remove them and allow the permanent plantings their rightful space. In the meantime, you'll have the illusion of speeding up your garden-making with these:

• Eucalyptus grows quickly even in our climate, and its silvery or gray-green, fragrant foliage is lovely year-round. Once other plants mature, it can be cut back severely in early spring to keep it shrubby. I've had good luck coppicing E. archeri to fit into a crowded border. E. gunnii from Tasmania is especially hardy, fast growing and somewhat moisture-tolerant.

• Rapidly growing trees with huge leaves create a near-instant focal point. The empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa) and Catalpa bignonioides both have leaves that spread 8 to 12 inches wide. Both take well to being cut back hard, so you get strikingly lush juvenile foliage each year. The empress tree bears fragrant clusters of lavender flowers; the catalpa has white flowers followed by long, bean-shaped seed capsules.

• Annuals flower all summer long, but most lack stature. Tree mallows, or Lavatera, provide both height and profuse bloom, with bright, open flowers that look like single hollyhocks, and handsome maple-shaped leaves. A single plant will spread 5 feet wide and grow 6 to 10 feet high the first year. L. 'Barnsley' has showy, pale-pink flowers with a darker pink eye; L. arborea 'Variegata' has smaller mauve flowers and leaves that appear to have been generously dipped in cream. Cape fuchsias from South Africa (Phygelius species) are also long-bloomers and quick-growers, with drooping tubular flowers hummingbirds love.

• Some vines grow so briskly you can almost watch them climb. The purple potato vine (Solanum crispum 'Glasnevin') bears thousands of little, yellow-centered, blue-purple flowers. Humulus lupulus 'Aurea' is a hop vine that spangles an arbor in a single season with its hefty chartreuse leaves. For evergreen foliage, Clematis armandii climbs rapidly, with fragrant, starry flowers in white or pink that bloom in March.

When choosing speedy perennials, select those that have a real presence, such as Verbascum bombyciferum, whose furry gray spires are topped with yellow flowers, and plume poppy (Macleaya cordata), which makes up for its gangliness with bold, felty leaves.

Now In Bloom

Fancy leafed zonal pelargoniums (usually called geraniums) are some of the most tempting annuals filling nursery tables this month, with flashy foliage in various shapes, colors and patterning. Try several grouped in a terra-cotta pot, or play their leaf color off permanent plantings. P. 'Blazonry' is one of the prettiest, with rounded leaves in cream, green, rose pink and dark purple. The single red-orange flowers of P. 'Turkish Delight' has leaves broadly banded in gold, green and bronze-red.

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