“Buffalo, New York. The quintessential snow storm city, forever pictured in the minds of out-of-towners as a place where snow is ever present. Forget about all of that!
“Now it’s Buffalo, New York. The quintessential gardening city, forever pictured in the minds of gardeners and other people as a place where gardens are everywhere. Remember it that way!”
That’s a quote from the blog May Dreams Gardens by Carol in Indiana, just one of many blogs extolling the virtues of Buffalo after a national gathering for garden bloggers took place this summer in Buffalo.
“There was the occasional snow joke,” admitted Jim Charlier, one of the event’s organizers, “but those faded fast because the weather was in the 90s that week.”
Gardening bloggers began an annual gathering three years ago. Last year, Charlier, author of the Art of Gardening blog, attended the event in Chicago along with fellow Buffalonian, Elizabeth Licata. She writes the Gardening While Intoxicated blog and is one of four bloggers of Garden Rant. Since the event moves to a different city each year, Charlier and Licata decided Buffalo should have its turn in 2010.
They organized a whirlwind four-day visit for about 70 bloggers dubbed Buffa10.
The bloggers visited gardens in Allentown and the Cottage District of Buffalo, the Front Yard Competition, the Erie Basin Marina test gardens, the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, the Japanese Garden in Delaware Park, and the gardens of local authors Mike and Kathy Shadrack, as well as the gardens of Charlier and Licata.
Buses took the bloggers from site to site, and they were well-cared for. They had meals in some of our loveliest restaurants, and enjoyed an English tea at the Shadracks’ home, which was a highlight of the visit for many of the participants, Charlier said. The photo below shows the breath-taking setting for the tea. 
The bloggers were impressed by their visit, and shared their experiences with their readers nationally, and internationally.
“These truly are real gardens by real people,” wrote Helen Battersby, who, with her sister Sarah Battersby, writes the blog Toronto Gardens. “Really great gardens by really generous people. We’ve been blown away by Buffalo.”
You can read dozens of posts about gardening in Buffalo here. Posts grouped by topic, including comments on Buffalo, are here.
Charlier, who is president of Garden Walk Buffalo and was also part of the organizing committee for the National Garden Festival in Buffalo, finds that while he meets often with other gardeners, they’re so busy talking about shuttle bus schedules, T-shirt costs and other organizing details that they rarely have a chance to talk about their gardens.
When he blogs, “It’s like talking to a neighbor over the fence, but on the Internet,” he said.
He wishes more Western New Yorkers would blog about their gardens.
“It would help to foster the gardening community,” he said. “The more blogs that are out there, the better it looks for Buffalo.”
Do you have a blog where you talk about your garden, or do you have a favorite blog that you read? Please share by leaving a comment!
Photos in this post are by Buffa10 official photographer Cheryl Jackson.
