GARDENS : STYLE : Lush Life

I love old-fashioned flowers that lean and lie down,” says actress Julie Newmar, whose Brentwood yard looks like a classic garden print come to life.

The full but floppy white flowers of Madame Alfred Carriere, a Noisette rose dating from 1879, hang from an entry arbor. Madame Isaac Pereire, with its deep pink flowers, anchors a far corner. Typical of many old roses, this Bourbon rose, hybridized in 1881, has sprawling branches that can be trained to grow on a wall or trellis or on the ground (shown here), secured with U-shaped pins.

Nancy Goslee Power & Associates helped reorganize the garden two years ago, adding a short path of Arizona flagstone and dainty pink erodium that leads to an antique French park chair. Scented geraniums and fragrant herbs grow along the path, and every other available space is filled with spring flowers: Iceland and Shirley poppies, fragrant stock, old-fashioned forget-me-nots, storybook delphiniums, penstemon and quaint nasturtiums.

Though it measures only 20 by 26 feet, this is not a low-maintenance garden; there are always things to plant, fertilize and prune. But says Newmar, who played Catwoman on the “Batman” TV series: “This is not work, it’s play.”