Garden Party

Covered from head to toe with sunflowers of all sizes, Margarite Hampton drew laughs Saturday from other visitors at the Orange County Fair. "It's gotta be the hat," the 38-year-old Costa Mesa homemaker said of her straw hat sprouting plastic sunflowers. "I just blend right in." Thousands of fair-goers were greeted this opening weekend by rows of live sunflowers lining the Orange County Fairgrounds in keeping with this year's theme, "Come to Our Garden Party."

Organizers of the 103rd Orange County Fair are throwing a garden party that, in keeping with the theme, also features some night-blooming jazzmen among the diverse roster of entertainers. But the real star of the show could be a newcomer.

Among this year's reminders of the end of World War II 50 years ago is a rose. Peace, a yellow-pink hybrid tea, was introduced in 1945 at a show in Los Angeles. Although the event had been planned for months, the rose's ceremonial christening took place the day Berlin fell. Bred in France by Francis Meilland and introduced in the United States by Robert Pyle of Conard-Pyle Roses, Peace has won most of the world's top rose awards, including the National Gold Medal Certificate.

The present-day Celtics watched generations of Boston basketball glory walk across the Garden parquet at halftime Friday night. Somehow, it wasn't inspiration enough. Even though the Celtics couldn't beat the New York Knicks in the last regular-season game at the Boston Garden, the Cleveland Cavaliers made sure at least one more basketball game will be played in the venerable building.

In our fair city, the crape myrtles, jacarandas, oleanders and jasmine add perfumy sensual flair to the flowering oaks, the breeze-blown palms, the leafy sycamores and the stately eugenia hedges. Who can resist alfresco? It's the pizza (and the piece , too) de resistance to social folks' entertaining. * Classical: Doing it outdoors recently were Joan and Frank Thompson in Pasadena.

A trip to the Bushmills Distilleries in Ireland, a Napa Valley wine-tasting weekend and a cooking class at the California Culinary Institute are among the items to be auctioned Sunday during the KCRW Foundation's fourth annual "Summerday and International Wine, Dine and Travel Auction." Things get started at noon when auctioneer Joe Smith takes the stage at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

The good news about this garden party is that no one will force you to play croquet, wear white or sip watery iced tea. In fact, if you show up in a ripped and soiled T-shirt, cutoffs and flip-flops and spill soda on yourself, the hosts at Haven Hills won't mind. Why would they care? You'll be in your own back yard.

Clipper rookie Harold Ellis was wide eyed as he walked onto the parquet floor at the Boston Garden on Friday night. "I've seen this place on TV all my life, but I've never been here," Ellis said as he stared at the 16 championship banners hanging from the rafters. "To make your first start at the Boston Garden, that's hard." Clipper Coach Bob Weiss started Ellis, a 6-foot-5 swingman, in place of forward Loy Vaught to energize the Clippers, who had lost 11 of 13 games.

Making her debut as one of 21 restaurateurs and caterers participating in the fifth annual Taste of the Town of the Santa Clarita Valley, Gayle McCrosky of Valencia plans to go Greek. In keeping with her theme of a Greek taverna, McCrosky, a caterer in the Santa Clarita Valley for more than 10 years, will come in costume and will provide music and a belly dancer along with serving a feast of gyro, tyropeita (phyllo dough stuffed with cheese), Greek peasant salad and cookies.

Let a sunlit garden be your setting for fancier affairs, including weddings, showers and graduation parties. The following ideas might make it easier to plan your next special event: * For a distinctive outdoor gathering, take advantage of nature's gifts. Complement your fresh-air setting with clipped flowers and greens from your garden or the farmer's market. * Make your own flower arrangements in inexpensive clay pots.