Dhelia Fahrner always loved the grand, formal gardens of Europe _ the statuary, the pea gravel paths, the box hedges and roses. But she doesn’t live on vast estate grounds. She resides in a Colonial Revival home on a city lot in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood, where the back grape-stake fence is just a stone’s throw from her bedroom window.
Her challenge ahead, she set out to create a traditional English garden in a small yard. And she began with a focal point. 
"I wanted a focal point to look down the garden and rest your eye at
the end of the garden,” she said.
But what should that focal point be? She considered statuary, but decided on an ornate urn with a green patina atop a pedestal from Sun Studios in Half Moon Bay. Dhelia has a container gardening business called La Jardiniere, planting urns seasonally for her clients, so figured "if anyone should have a container it should be me.”
When she was asked to decorate the master bedroom balcony in the 2006 Symphony Silicon Valley Designers’ Showcase House in Saratoga, she fell in love with the ornate green urn and decided it would be the perfect ornament in her own garden.
Her mother, a master gardener and native of Ireland, flew down from Seattle to help with the project. Where to place the urn? They considered the center of the garden, but decided on the very back. And they set about creating an allusion of depth. They moved old plants out of the way and created a straight central path leading to the urn. They lined it with box hedges and paved it with pea gravel, forcing the eye to naturally gravitate to the elevated urn.
She moved existing roses and peonies to the sunny side of the path, and camelias and azaleas to the shady side. With a lemon tree on one side, she balanced the garden with a tall Victorian bird house and flowering maple tree on the other.
In the urn this summer, she has planted geraniums, salvia, dahlias, verbena and calibrochoa.
"I love to replant it seasonally," she said, and also to use it as a "test urn to see how things grow" for her gardening business.
"Working with my mom was a fun experience,” Dhelia said, "and we were really happy with the results."
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Delia planted part of my garden for a special summer party and everyone of our guests thought it looked beautiful.
I think the really great thing about this garden ( besides it’s beauty) is that contrary to other container plantings that appeal strictly to the eye, Dhelia’s are planted homogeneously( same water, sunlight and fertilizing needs) and thus will sustain long after any ‘event’ is over. Nice job.