What happens when 12 landscape architects are each asked to create the ideal garden?

Unbridled creativity.

"A landscape architect usually doesn't think in terms of unlimited resources and unlimited budget. They don't think in terms of doing whatever they like. They're in a situation where they have to please a client and work within certain restraints," said Randy Ploog, assistant curator of the Palmer Museum of Art, where Transforming the American Garden will be on exhibit through May 13.

Ploog said that the lack of restraints allowed the landscape architects, who were brought together by the Harvard Graduate School of Design, to render the most fantastic gardens they wished. The exhibit consists of both drawings and scale models of the proposed gardens. None of the gardens have been or will likely be built, Ploog said.

Despite their lack of practicality, nearly all of the designs are innovative, intriguing and brimming with social commentary.

"Some poke fun and some are profound but they're all saying something," said Eliza Pennypacker, associate professor of landscape architecture.

For example, in their design "A Mythological Garden," Lee Weintraub and John di Domenico confront the worship of athletes indicative of the 20th century.

The main focus of the garden is a classical temple which houses a basketball court. Ploog said the duo incorporated a statue of the ancient Greek winged goddess of victory, Nike, whose name was made more widely known by its adoption as the trade name of a popular sneaker manufacturer. Adjacent to the temple / court, Nike is posed as if gearing up to shoot a basket.

To emphasize the mesmerizing nature of the athlete, the architects included in the exhibition catalog the following description of one modern-day god:

"Magic, a basketball player, is a god of the court, a wizard of the whooshes, a man who with superhuman grace who always turns a remarkable athletic performance. Magic is a high priest of the popular culture, a very theological figure worshipped and adored by the public.

Weintraub and di Domenico's model is accented by a huge sculpted hand holding a neon basketball. Ploog said the architects probably included this strange detail, which towers high above the temple, to enhance the goddess Nike's basketball throwing role in the design.

Another extreme garden design was created by Martha Schwartz. In "The New York City Bulb Garden," Schwartz carefully mapped out a grid system for planting message-bearing flowers that will bloom seasonally. If planted in early and late spring, the garden would spell out the words "ignorance" and "evil". During the summer the message would be "money", while in fall it would read "bliss".

Ploog said the possibilities for alternative messages, which would most likely be visible only from above the garden, are endless.

"So, you could sit down at a computer and come up with a different planning pattern and get all the coordinates, the number, letter coordinates and get another planning pattern for any pattern or word that you wanted to spell out in the garden," he said.

One of the less bizarre garden designs is Terrence Harkness' "An East Central Illinois Garden: A Regional Garden." As the title suggests, Harkness based his design on the gardens of East Central Illinois, more frequently called farms.

"He's looking at how farms are normally laid out. He's observing this pattern and how people organize their farms. So, it's a sensible organizing scheme," Ploog said.

Harkness uses many practical features of a farm in his garden including the inner, middle, outer setup of a farm, windbreaking trees and shrubs as well as irrigation ditches.

Whether fantastic or practical, all of the designs seem to indicate that when given free rein, landscape architects show they are indeed artists, a distinction that some landscape architects feel they have been denied.

"I think that too often, the public doesn't realize that landscape architecture is an art form just like painting or sculpture," Pennypacker said.

Transforming the American Garden will be highlighted by a brown bag lunch / lecture at 12:10 p.m. Thursday, April 19. Kay Wagenknecht-Harte, assistant professor of landscape architecture, will speak. At 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 22, there will also be a group discussion of careers in the visual arts led by Landscape Architect Robert G. Preston of Forrest Associates, Atlantic City, N.J.