A patriotic grouping of red, white and blue clematis displays just a few of the many varieties of clematis that you’ll find in the huge gardens of Barb Rudnicki, 395 Reserve Rd., West Seneca. She will share her garden on the second annual West Seneca Garden Walk, which will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 20. You can pick up maps at the Charles E. Burchfield Nature & Art Center, corner of Union Road & Clinton…...
Category: Garden tips
Garden tips for the Buffalo area.
Pesticide-free yard in Parkside is kid-friendly & pretty, too
You may be used to seeing small yellow signs warning you to keep your children and pets off a neighbor’s lawn because it had recently been sprayed with a pesticide. A different kind of yellow sign is displayed in the front yard at 82 West Humboldt, Buffalo: “Pesticide Free. This area safe for children, pets and other living things.” “To me, it’s worth avoiding pesticides,” Dan Cadzow said. “You track it inside on your shoes and the kids play on…...
Fairy garden– or fairy village– to be seen on South Buffalo garden walk
by Connie Oswald Stofko Lyn Rezabek of Julius St., South Buffalo, got into fairy gardens about four years ago. Her husband Bill suggested creating a raised bed for her fairy landscape. Over the years, her collection of fairy items has grown, and they added three more raised beds. Now they have something of a fairy village. You can see her fairy garden on South Buffalo Alive, a garden walk that will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday,…...
Vignettes by gardener are backdrop to Lancaster mini-walks
Karen Deutschlander of 36 Stephens Ct., Lancaster, thinks that gardening is less about growing plants and more about decorating. That makes her gardens a welcoming backdrop to Art in the Gardens, the first of three mini-walks to be held by the Lancaster Garden Walk in conjunction with Lancaster’s Old Home Days. Art in the Gardens will be held from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 30. Six artists will display their work in six gardens. Works of Conrad Borucki, a…...
Peaceful backyard will join 30 other yards on Hamburg garden walk
“My favorite time is the morning and night,” said Marg Rust as she surveyed the garden beds in her backyard at 71 Rosedale, Hamburg. “That’s when you get the filtered sun reflected off the pond. It’s so peaceful. “It’s good for the psyche and the soul to surround yourself with things that are beautiful.” She pointed out a pond plant, which you can see in the first photo. The plant at the bottom left with a spikey ball at the…...
Container garden contest in Lewiston offers inspiring designs
Looking at objects in a different way– in this case upside down– can help you create unusual container gardens. Bonnie Bagwell flipped a glass light shade and used it as the base for this eye-catching container garden. Bagwell won first place for her design in the traditional category of the container garden competition at the Lewiston GardenFest, which was held Saturday and Sunday, June 22 and 23. The event also included a vendor fair, garden walk and speakers. The event…...
With rainy weather, watch for slugs, plant diseases in Western New York
With all this rain in Western New York, it looks more like April than June. John Farfaglia, extension educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Niagara County, said some gardeners have water ponding in their yards, and yesterday he saw someone’s riding lawn mower stuck in the mud. We had a dry spring in Western New York, but so far this month we’ve had about twice the average amount of rain we would get during that period. This weather poses some…...
Question on spotty mint, plus more gardening news
What’s the problem with this mint– and oregano, too? Jackie Fialkowski Gatas contacted me with this question: Does anyone happen to know what is happening with my mint? It’s also starting to show on my oregano. Don’t know if it’s a bug or a fungus. Thanks guys. Readers, can you help Jackie? If so, please leave a comment below. Background Sometimes readers contact me with questions that I can’t answer. I’m not a gardening expert– I’m a writer by profession…....
Want something unique? Try daylilies–Easy to grow, too!
If you’re looking for a flower that’s easy to grow and different from what your neighbors have in their gardens, try one of the 1,100 varieties of daylilies available at Lasting Dreams Daylilies, 6425 South Abbott Rd., Orchard Park. If you need more variety, hang in there. Carol and Anthony Haj, owners of Lasting Dreams Daylilies, are working on hybridizing their own brand new varieties, too. There are so many reasons to love daylilies. Topping the list is daylilies’ beauty…...
Cheektowaga gardener stays organized with careful notes
Chet Okonczak can tell you the name of every plant in his garden, and if he’s not sure of a name, he can easily look it up. Organized in a three-ring photo album are hand-drawn maps of each plant in the six beds in his backyard at 38 Brentwood, Cheektowaga. On the same page are photos of that bed at various times of the year. In the pocket on the back of the page he keeps the plant tags so…...

