Dwarfed by a ready-to-bloom, 20-foot-tall bromeliad, Mary Philpotts wields a palm-size knife as she manages and harvests the riches of her acre of Nuuanu rain forest. She calls the red-and-green Alcantarea imperialis flower "nature’s Christmas gift."

Once in full bloom, the best view of the towering plant is from the third-floor dormer of her Hart Wood-designed home, a space she also uses as an art studio and grandchildren’s play area.

"Opala is our friend," says the interior designer, teacher, artist and shop owner as she motions toward what looks like rubbish among the giant bromeliad. Several years ago she decided to forgo a fresh Christmas tree, opting instead for an artificial one decorated with recycled gifts from her garden — dried and gold-sprayed hydrangea — plus some silky fabric scraps that came in a box of gift items she ordered for her School Street shop, Place. She says the packing was even more interesting than the gifts.

"When that happens I tuck the material away to use someday," Philpotts says.

The fresh-cut trimmings and dried opala fill entryway alcoves, the mantle and a sideboard, and stretch down the center of the antique dining table set for 10, all intertwined with silver bells, glittering candelabra, ornaments, gilded plastic fruits and Christmas berries.

"I can’t believe we used to crawl through a forest to harvest the berries, only to have them shed all over the floor," she says.

The artificial berries are on their fifth or sixth year, tucked away in the attic with branches and leaves that have stamina for many years of recycling.

Philpotts’ enthusiasm can’t be contained but her arrangements can. She waves a stick from a trumpet vine and says, "This is all about light and shadows," as she places it in an antique candleholder fitted with a yogurt container filled with water and a few drops of Clorox to keep bacteria or mosquitos from making a home in the pot. At the end of the season, she often finds that the small plants have grown roots, ready to be planted.

Magnolia branches come next, lush with green leaves that slowly turn to a rusty brown.

"That’s when I spritz them with a few drops of gold," she says.

The yearly December pruning of the magnolia tree yields a harvest too large for home use. Philpotts hauls the branches down to the front door of Place and offers them free to all the folks on her email list. She calls it sharing the wealth, with the hope that using opala to decorate will be the trend, not the exception.

Laughing, she says she never needs to go to an exercise class. "Just 45 minutes a day in the yard will do it. The thing is, it turns into three hours, and then I have to hurry to get all the other things done."

TWENTY YEARS ago, when Philpotts and her husband, John Williams McGrath, purchased their now 90-year-old house, they could hear but not see the stream below because 50 years or more of tree trimmings and yard cuttings had been dumped over the bank. She says their son, Billy, began to poke around and found stone steps dating back to the turn of the century. Slowly they reclaimed the garden, discovering stone lanterns and the hand-hewn stone steps.

"We hauled a ton of green waste up the hill," she says.

They pruned the trees, allowing light and the sound of the stream through, "like music, all day and night, all year."

The tree canopy allows orchids and begonias, two of her passions, to thrive by filtering the light. Every ti leaf known today seems to be growing on the hillside, identified and nurtured by Waimanalo ti expert David Yearian of Ti’s Unlimited. One plant is named the John McGrath.

Dozens of staghorn ferns explode from the branches of century-old trees, looking a bit like a scene from the movie "Avatar." As the fern leaves fall they are added to indoor and outdoor dried arrangements.

Equally comfortable designing a multimillion-dollar project for a luxury resort as she is dressing a monstera vine for a living-room corner display, Philpotts is known for welcoming garden club members from across the country and international visitors to her property. Documentation of the garden is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

The light-and-shadow theme of the inside decor is reflected in the yard. She notes that older homes rarely had outdoor lighting. Rather than adding strings of Christmas lights to garland every plant, the McGraths had lighting experts Lowell Barnhart and Brian Shuckburgh illuminate the front yard, the ancient monstera-lined auwai that flows on the street side, and the cascading garden wilderness that stretches to the stream in the valley below.

The result is a subtle and dramatic garden glow.

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"Garden Party" spotlights unique and exceptional gardens. Contact us via email at features@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4808.