High school sweethearts Kitty and Captain Gray have created a mystical getaway in their backyard.

Hardly a simple plant growing here and a path winding there, the garden is an extension of the Grays’ lives, their loves, their past, present and future. The carefully sculpted landscape tells a story, weaving elements of nature and man into a magical, spiritual place.

Kitty Gray spends a lot of time in what was once the family swimming pool but is now a full-time water garden.

I enter the Mexican-influenced courtyard that frames the front door of the Grays’ home and immediately feel welcome. The brick is warm and red, and a water feature squirts a thin stream that makes a delicate sound as it splashes against colorful tiles.

Kitty greets me at the door, and the sound of jazz escapes through the open front door. Over her shoulder, I can see the backyard through the vast expanse of windows that line the entire rear of the house. All the Grays’ furniture is arranged to capitalize on the spectacular view of the yard just beyond the wall of windows.

When Captain and Kitty purchased the house in 1979, the backyard consisted of a swimming pool and a big lawn. But by the mid-’90s, the walls of the pool had begun to erode. As the decaying concrete crumbled, the idea to create a water garden oasis floated to the surface.

The Grays were inspired by some bricks they had engraved to commemorate the life of their eldest child, Ryan. Best known as the unofficial mascot of the Kansas University men’s basketball team during the 1988 championship season, Ryan battled a brain tumor discovered in his infancy until it killed him three months shy of his 18th birthday in 1990. The bricks read:

A remembrance to Kitty and Captain Gray's late son, Ryan, best known as the Kansas University men's basketball team's unofficial mascot during the 1988 championship season, graces the couple's garden.

Ryan Scott Gray 1972-1990

He dreamed big dreams

Fashioned his world

With love and perseverance

And triumphed over disability

His lesson to us all

Live fully today and

Look forward to tomorrow

Play hard Ryan

Love Dad & Mom

Although the Grays’ garden is built around a memorial to their late son, the space is teeming with life. As I enter the garden, a giant frog leaps into the water, making a ripple that causes a Thalia plant to sway back and forth. Thousands of tadpoles cling to a mossy edge, hoping to get big enough to avoid being eaten by one of the hundreds of gold, black or pearl-colored goldfish or the blue heron that visits occasionally. Bunnies hop around almost as if they are trained family pets.

Gold fish swim in one of the ponds in Kitty and Captain Gray's backyard water garden.

Even in death, life is born into this garden. The Grays had the remains of the family dog, Murphy, made into compost to nourish the plants around the pond where he often hunted.

“Murphy used to try to fish, and he’d cough and sneeze with water in his snout,” Kitty says. “But little terriers don’t give up easily.”

This garden is not about grouping plants just so, or color combinations or changing fads. This garden is about whimsy, playfulness and discovery.

I would call it a “strolling garden.” Most every path leads to a fork with two or three routes to choose from, making it is possible to walk through this seven-tiered water garden with more than five waterfalls several times before traveling twice on the same combination of paths.

Lily pads float in Kitty and Captain Gray's West Lawrence garden. The couple transformed a backyard once occupied by a swimming pool and lawn into a seven-tiered water garden with surprises around every corner.

There’s the finely manicured and most-often-used path Captain created as an homage to the water snakes; a path for the adventurous made of giant boulders that teeter above the flowing waters below; and a path that invites you to sit next to a meditating Buddha statue as you listen to the rushing waterfall crash against the rocks.

“The garden was designed with the idea of it being a magical spot,” Kitty says. “For the child in all of us, we wanted a surprise to be around every corner.”

A buddha statue flanks a laugh rock in the backyard garden of Kitty and Captain Gray. The Grays' garden will be on the Sunflower Water Garden Tour set for 9 a.m.-4 p.m. June 25 and noon-4 p.m. June 26.

The Gray’s garden was meant to teach, inspire and make its inhabitants feel at ease and relaxed. That mission has taken its toll, however.

“Cap has pretty much given up on his golf game in lieu of the garden,” Kitty says.

I get the sneaking suspicion Kitty probably spends quite a bit of time out here as well. But she clarifies.

“Ryan taught us a lot about how to best use our time,” she says. “You shouldn’t squander it, so I am as busy as I want to be.”

As my tour of the Grays’ garden ends, I glance down at a rock engraved with the word “laugh” situated next to a little Buddha statue giggling his way to bliss, and I think Captain and Kitty Gray are fortunate to have such a wonderful oasis in which to create new memories, meditate and remember days gone by.

I want to take another walk around the water garden and tread on a path I missed, see a sculpture that was hidden behind a spruce, laugh at a clever saying emblazoned on a rock, but I know I could talk myself into staying all day. And Kitty – being such a gracious host – would probably let me.