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When Patricia Campbell peers deep into her gazing globe, she doesn't see a mysterious stranger, a long journey or an unexpected fortune.
She sees wormwood, Russian sage and golden lamb's ear. All purple and charmingly askew.
Her mirrored globe rests atop a concrete pedestal in her cliffside garden on Bainbridge Island, Wash., where it reflects passing clouds and abundant cottage plantings of silvery herbs and purple perennials -- not to mention her own truly purple eyeglass frames.
"The garden had to have one," says Ms. Campbell, whose picture-perfect plantings have been featured in books and tours. "And it had to be purple."
Gazing globes, a fixture in Victorian gardens, slipped from their pedestal in 20th-century America, their image tarnished by association with faded pink flamingos and lawn jockeys. But now the reflective orbs are on a roll -- reclaiming their historic place as an ornament in stately, traditional gardens as well as cozy rockeries.
Call it a new kind of global gardening -- a whimsical rebuke to the Flat Earth Society.
"I think for many years maybe they were seen as a little kitschy or fussy, or they reminded you of your grandmother's garden, which was not a good thing," said Jan Kowalczewski Whitner, a Kenmore garden designer and writer whose books include "Northwest Garden Style."
"Now people are getting back to the cottagey look," she added.
But gazing balls seem to reflect and amplify any garden style.
"They can be extremely contemporary, or they can be very romantic in a classic Victorian garden," said landscape designer Barbara Schmidt. "They're a period piece that's set, say, on the coffee table of the garden."
Tony garden magazines began featuring gazing globes several years ago, paving the way for their rehabilitated image. Designers now use them indoors and out -- in urns, plant hangers, afloat in ponds or simply nestled amid shrubs. For some, the nostalgia factor is a plus.
"My grandmother had one in her garden," Ms. Campbell said, "and that's why I had to have one. She said the witches come into the garden at night and see their reflection, and it scares them away."
Ms. Campbell, no rube, is a sophisticate whose garden is punctuated with stone and metal sculptures by local artists. Dubbed "Pea Sea's by the Sea," her pocket garden sets off her heavily remodeled Rolling Bay home, a one-time "dump with a view" that dates to 1875.
Ms. Campbell bought her purple globe three years ago, shortly after clearing the blackberries and designing her plantings. Although she worried about its durability, the globe survived the 2,000 visitors who traipsed through her yard two years ago for the Bainbridge in Bloom tour.
A couple of miles up the road, Sarah Pearl and her husband, Barry Sacks, have laid out a stylish series of gardens featuring gazing globes, locally made garden art and such whimsies as a free-standing salvage door that defines the boundary of their berry garden.
One gazing globe sits in a formal herb garden ringed by a picket fence, where it drew angry outbursts this spring from a male bird that saw its reflection.
"He kept making these big displays," Ms. Pearl said, "because he was trying to scare away the competition."
A cornflower blue globe peeks shyly from beneath a shrub in the "blue garden," and an emerald green globe brazenly tops a custom-made pedestal set in the pathway of a raised vegetable garden.
"We actually had one in there before that flew away in the wind one time," Ms. Pearl said.
That globe survived the big blow, only to break later. Its replacement is dealing nicely with exposure to the elements, although manufacturers often recommend sealing the necks to keep out moisture that can tarnish the silvering.
In some places, gazing globes never went out of style. The world-renowned Butchart Gardens near Victoria has long displayed a silver gazing globe near its formal rose garden.
"I believe the earliest photograph we have of it goes back to the early '50s," said Chryseis Sheppard, a spokesperson for the 50-acre tourist mecca, which draws more than a million visitors each year.
The breakable glass globe (and its many successors) drew so much hands-on attention from curious children that a more durable replica had to be substituted.
"Now we have them fabricated out of steel and made so they're reflective," Ms. Sheppard said.
"They're really popular. In fact, we've sold out of them," said Sandy Milam, until recently store manager at Smith & Hawken in Bellevue, Wash. The upscale garden retailer began offering 12-inch silver globes for $45 in its catalog this year and, Ms. Milam said, "We got a huge response to that."
Milam has a gold gazing ball in her own perennial border -- an urban garden that's visually expanded by the globe's reflection. She said she received it as a gift several years ago after discovering gazing globes at a nursery and becoming "all excited."
"Some people put them in trees," Ms. Milam said. "Mine's on a squat little pedestal close to the ground."
At present, globes are to be found in 10 colors -- from mother-of-pearl to red -- but the top sellers are silver and lavendar. They're priced at $47 to $55, and pedestals can cost $30 to $50 or more. Some garden art stores sell hand-crafted pedestals for hundreds of dollars.
Asian-made globes range from 4 to 10 inches, priced from about $10.50 to $55 -- a few dollars more for gold and red globes. Cobalt blue is their best seller.
"Even this last six months there's been a tremendous upswing in sales," said Cynthia Herrick, a garden accessories manager. "We've made six to eight orders in just the last three months. Sometimes every week."
Artists George Little and David Lewis incorporate Mexican gazing globes in some of the concrete sculptures they sell nationally.
"The ones that come from Mexico have little imperfections on them," Mr. Lewis said, "and their colors, I think are more brilliant."
Ultimately, the appeal of gazing globes depends on weaving them into the garden design.
"I have some friends who grew up in Indiana," says Jean Harrington. "I have to tell you they seem to have a different outlook on them there. What I was seeing there is people who just plopped them on a pedestal in the middle of a lawn."
If handled with flair, she said, the globes are "wonderfully elegant. You can actually float them in a pond. That's a way cool thing to do."
Ms. Harrington stocks only 12-inch globes in traditional silver because, she said, "I think it's the classiest."
While defending the aesthetic merits of gazing globes, Ms. Schmidt firmly upholds gardeners' right to kitsch as kitsch can.
"Gardens should be fun," the designer said. "My favorite gardener is a little old lady who has a sign saying 'Squirrel crossing."'
Ms. Schmidt said the gardener in question, who also displays a cutout of a bent-over backside with bloomers, doesn't have a gazing ball.
"But she ought to," Ms. Schmidt said with a chuckle. "In pink."
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