by Liz Hamill

After you’ve spent all year working to create a beautiful outdoor space, summer is the perfect time to show off that gorgeous garden. What better way to showcase your blooms and bountiful foliage than to hold a traditional garden party?

Step 1: Prep Your Garden

You don’t need to rip up and replant your yard to make it garden-party ready. Instead, concentrate on highlighting the beauty that’s already present.

On the coast, it’s as likely to be cool and foggy as warm and sunny on the day of your party. So plan for chill. If you don’t already have a fire pit, consider purchasing one for this and future events. Hardware and home stores sell wood-burning fire pits and chimineas for as little as $90.

If your party will run into evening, brighten up your garden with outdoor lighting. Twinkle lights wrapped around trees and woven into branches light up the evening. Paper lanterns offer a sweet touch, while metal and glass lanterns add atmosphere.

Spruce up your garden’s furniture to make it both functional and fun. Scrub all the tables and dust all the chairs. Adding brightly colored cushions to the chairs makes comfy seats for your friends. If your garden doesn’t usually serve as an outdoor living space, folding chairs and kitchen chairs make good outdoor seating. Indoor end tables can be pressed into service as spots to set drinks down. Larger folding tables covered with machine-washable tablecloths can create buffet space.

Finally, think about flowers and plants. The week before your garden party, visit a local nursery. Purchase a few pre-planted containers with your favorite colorful annual flowers to add bright pops of color to your yard. Or choose exotic succulents to create unique centerpieces that may become door prizes or party favors for your guests.

Mow the lawn several days in advance of your gathering, both to give it time to recover from the mower and to let the allergens that mowing kicks up settle back down. Give everything a good watering a day or two before your party. That way everything will look fresh and pretty, neither dry and droopy nor damp and drippy.

Step 2: Invite Guests

When you decide on your guest list, keep the party to a size that will be comfortable in your garden. A too-crowded garden means stepped-on plants and sprained ankles. At a garden party, people often like to sit down to chat, and to wander through the garden to admire the plants. Be sure there’s space for both activities.

One way to make your garden party fun is to request that your guests wear “appropriate attire,” whatever that means to you. For a wedding or baby shower, ask invitees to wear sundresses and festive hats. For a mid-summer gathering, you might request semi-formal dress — ladies in tea-length dresses and flat slippers, gentlemen in jackets and ties. Whatever you think your friends would enjoy.

Step 3: Prep the Food

Garden parties lend themselves to casual buffets filled with afternoon tea-style dishes. Platters stacked with watercress and egg-salad sandwiches, bowls full of fresh berries, glass plates of petits fours, and pitchers of lemonade and mojitos make for happy partygoers who can eat standing up without utensils. Although sit-down meals can work, the casual ramblings of an outdoor soiree make finger foods an easier route for both guests and for hosts — who will be faced with less clean-up work after the party is over.

If you’re not planning to provide a full meal, you can still offer tasty and beautiful nibbles. Put out a bowl of strawberries, dishes of almonds and cashews, a small mountain of potato chips, a tray filled with bites of raw vegetables, and petits fours or mini-cupcakes from the local bakery.

Step 4: Party On

Now it’s time to relax and enjoy your own party! If you’ve prepped properly, you’ll have plenty of time to mingle with your friends and family, munch on tea sandwiches, and sip a mojito of your own.

Step 5: Give Your Garden Some Post-Party Love

Your garden may be a little bit battered by all the people admiring it — and tromping through it. So remember to water the day after your gathering. Get any extra furniture off the lawn so it can recover. Do a search of your flowerbeds to check for stray cups and napkins. Find permanent homes for any dish gardens you bought specifically for the party.

The following recipes, appropriate for a garden party, come from Filoli. The first recipe in turn comes from The Village Baker’s Wife, a cookbook by Gayle and Joe Ortiz of Gayle’s Bakery in Capitola. There have been minor edits for clarity.

Lavender Shortbread

1 ½ cups butter, room temperature

2⁄3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons finely chopped dried lavender

2 1⁄3 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup cornstarch

¼ tsp salt

½ cup powdered sugar, for dusting.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream butter, sugar and lavender until light and fluffy. Add flour, cornstarch and salt and mix until incorporated.

Divide the dough into two equal blocks. Flatten the blocks, seal in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll each block of dough into an 8-by-8-inch square, about 1⁄4 inch thick. Cut into 2-by-2-inch squares. Bake squares on baking sheet in center of oven 12-14 minutes or until pale gold. Cool on sheet 5 minutes. When cookies are completely cooled dust lightly with powdered sugar.

Lavender Lemon Verbena Lemonade

2 tablespoons organic lavender buds

2 branches lemon verbena

Juice of 4 lemons

½ cup sugar

Heat 4 cups of water to boiling. Place lavender and lemon verbena leaves in strainer. Pour boiling water over, keeping the lavender and verbena immersed in the water for a minimum of 10 minutes. Taste liquid to see if it has enough flavor. Remove strainer when enough flavor has been achieved.

Make simple syrup by adding ½ cup sugar to ½ cup boiling water. Stir until sugar is dissolved.

Combine flavored water, lemon juice and simple syrup. Pour over ice and serve.