Liz Ghandi moved to Sunset Hills three years ago from Pittsburgh, Pa., but she already has an award-winning garden growing around her Pagada Parkway home.

“In Pittsburgh, gardening was easier be-cause it wasn’t as hot,” Gandhi said.

A combination of heat, irrigation and erosion concerns prompted Gandhi to plant a garden featuring perennial plants — ones that don’t have to be planted again every year.

“I keep moving things though,” Gandhi said. “I had some rhododendron bushes that were dying out front and we put them back in the woods. It’s unbelievable how fast they grow.”

Gandhi’s garden placed first in the Sunset Hills Garden Club’s 50th anniversary competition being conducted this summer.

“The nice thing is I have a few things that bloom in the spring, a lot of these are all summer, and then I have things that you can’t even see now, that will bloom next month and extend into fall,” she said.

Colorful flower beds mounded with compost ring Gandhi’s property and the footprint of her home.

Now that she has her property in bloom, Gandhi has joined a committee to beautify common ground in her subdivision.

“We did the front entrance to the subdivision this year,” she said.

But some people don’t pay much attention to her work.

“My husband wouldn’t know if I dyed the lawn purple,” she joked.