At the entrance to Delisle Court is a huge flowerbed brimming with fiery nasturtiums and vibrant salmon snapdragons. Scarlet runners reach up the light standard in the centre of the bed and a tiny bark path leads to a tangle of delphiniums and portulaca. It’s a garden usually reserved for carefully tended backyards, not the end of a residential street.
St. Albert’s Partners in Parks program brings beauty from backyards to boulevards, compliments of resident gardeners like Carol Rankin and Patricia Drapeau.
The initiative gives residents the opportunity to work with the city to help maintain and improve local neighbourhoods, parks and green spaces.
Erin Gluck, community recreation coordinator for the City of St. Albert says the program has been around since at least the early ’90s.
Rankin and Drapeau have been maintaining the flowerbed in their Delisle Court boulevard for over 20 years. The pair are two of about 350 St. Albert residents who volunteer to keep their neighbourhood looking good.
“Some people do it on their own, some people do it in pairs and then some do it with their whole family,” Gluck says.
Contributions range from litter pick-up to lawn mowing to flower planting.
“There are some that are larger groups that all contribute to a larger area like the Kingswood day use area, for example,” says Gluck. “And then a lot of other ones are just looking after small areas just in and around where their houses are.”
Gluck says there are many residents maintaining public spaces near their home that aren’t registered with the program.
The public works crews maintaining city property are educated about the Partners in Parks program so they can talk to residents about it on their daily rounds trimming the green spaces around St. Albert.
“If they see somebody who’s obviously maintaining an area, they let them know about the program just so that there is that opportunity to acknowledge their contributions,” Gluck says.
The city does ask that residents do notify them if they would like to plant anything on public property so that they can work together to select the best items to plant.
“We can help with things like saying, ‘a birch is not going to do well here because it’s not going to get the water requirement it needs,’ or that kind of thing – so help guide them,” Gluck says. “Or we’ve had issues before with conflicts between trail users and trees along an area, and we can see if there’s a different tree that can be planted – that kind of thing.”
Carol Rankin says the Delisle Court flowerbed has evolved over the years.
“It was three separate flower beds and over the years it’s changed to this now because we’re consistently doing it,” Rankin says. “And (the city) knows we’re reliable and dependable so they gave us more.”
The Partners in Parks program provides the residents with a voucher they can take to the Enjoy Centre to purchase flowers for the bed. Rankin says the neighbours chip in as well.
“We have a little fund that neighbours will throw in a few dollars for extra perennials if we want them because they don’t always last.”
Last year, the city conducted a pilot program with planter barrels to provide a place for flowers where there was no existing bed.
“This year was the first year we actually implemented it,” Gluck says. “And we had a certain number of planter barrels available that if your cul-de-sac island or corner of your street or entrance feature was suitable, we could provide a soil-filled planter that you and your neighbours filled with flowers.”
About 20 planter barrels around the city were planted and maintained by local residents this year.
Rankin says the neighbour-maintained areas can really add to a neighbourhood.
“It beautifies the neighbourhood and it gives people I think a feeling of enjoyment around their neighbourhood,” she says.
Rankin and Drapeau sometimes receive help from neighbours but it’s primarily the two of them tending to the Delisle Court garden.
“Some people feel that the city should be doing it, not us,” Rankin says.
Both ladies have their own gorgeous backyard gardens and taking care of the plants in the boulevard is a job they’re happy to do. It’s also one that doesn’t go unnoticed.
“The neighbours really appreciate it, they’re always very complimentary,” Rankin says. “That’s what gardeners do. If you get into gardening, everybody’s always helping each other out.”
