Beautiful Gardens: Katrina and Bryan jackson, Gramina, Parkland County, Alberta

Katrina and Bryan Jackson.

Beautiful Gardens

Katrina and Bryan Jackson

Graminia, Parkland County, alberta

story and photos by dorothy dobbie and shauna dobbie

The pond and waterfall.

Three years ago, this house on a beautiful acreage just a hop from Edmonton, was falling into disrepair. It had been built with loving care by the owners, but they were getting older. Katrina and Bryan Jackson saw the potential and bought it, and in those three years, have transformed it, helped by Bryan’s father, Reed.

The borders flow around the side and the back of the house. Lupines have been allowed to proliferate in one corner, their colourful, peashaped spikes proclaiming sovereign-

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Various sedums spill over the rocks.

Pink fleabane.

A teepee, just beyond a firepit with Adirondack chairs.

Red poppies, blue bachelor buttons and white feverfew.

Caught from behind, this boy overlooking the pond.

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The overhang at the back of the house.

The play structure on the left and the teepee on the right.

Crown Land, just beyond the Jacksons’ property.

ty over this patch of garden, but there are clumps of sweet William, purple fleabane, poppies and dianthus. At the back, a large verandah hangs over a shaded patio, flanked by gardens. It overlooks the vast backyard that rolls down through a farm gate, past a well-kept vegetable plot to a creek on Crown Land, just beyond the bottom of the garden; in design, it is reminiscent of an English landscape.

A couple of things seize immediate attention: a pond and waterfall that form a centre focal point and a giant net-covered teepee—not the commercial kind, but a genuine, handmade creation fashioned from cut poles that have clearly come from the property. The teepee, standing in front of another garden filled with shrubs and peonies, was constructed as a play house for the Jackson’s kids, sixyear-old Benjamin and four-year-old Ruth, but it makes a clear statement on the landscape that is surrounded by mature trees and lush lawn. This is a family home where life is lived in earnest. Not far beyond the teepee, hidden a bit by some tall trees, is a play structure complete with swings and a slide.

The pond is really the centre of attention, though. Native stones reflected in the still water resemble loaves of bread set in bread pans as water trickles lazily down a built waterfall. Magenta and pink peonies and a giant fleeceflower add subdued colour, but spent allium seed heads and the sword-like leaves of bloomed iris tell a tale of well-planned seasonable bloom. Along the edge, sedums and other succulents soften the concrete structure.

At one side, a group of Adirondack chairs overlook a fire pit, a stack of wood ready to light nearby. This is the place to gather on a warm summer evening after a busy day spent tending the vegetable patch or harvesting the saskatoons that flank the edge of the property, their sweet and almond-y fruit full of prairie promise.

Through the gate and beyond the fence, a large garden building provides support for the water collection system: a set of five great reservoirs that save rain water for

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A colourful mix of flowers and a white picket fence.

Pink peonies behind a mass of spent anemones.

Spires of blue delphinium just inside the fence to the vegetable garden.

Pale peony just coming into bloom.

A clump of rosy dianthus.

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A bunch of fleabane.

the vegetables which grow in neat, parallel rows on either side of a wide grassed path. The vegetable garden is where Reed spends much of his time in the summer when he isn’t pruning trees. With such a large garden so close to Crown Land, it is a full-time

job keeping the weeds at bay.

The entrance to the vegetable garden is guarded by seven large spruce trees that provide just the right amount of shade. Little groves of trees are an important feature of this yard, both front and back, giving

A little sparrow house.

it a safe and secluded feeling.

At the end of the garden is the wilderness area, a place of wide grass and natural trees surrounding a prairie creek. Wildlife loves this place, helping to balance the man made and nature made environments. i

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The vegetable patch

at the back of Jackson’s property is a massive vegetable plot, where Katrina and reed grow just about every kind of edible you can imagine.

Lineup of containers with collected rainwater.

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