by Connie Oswald Stofko Rosemary Lyons has an ingenious way to squeeze plants into the flagstone patio that takes up all of her tiny yard. One place where there aren’t any pavers is where the wrought iron fence is set into the ground. Lyons set some bricks on each side of the fence, then filled the area around the fence with fresh soil and lots of compost. There was enough room to plant purple pole beans, and the fence was…
by Connie Oswald Stofko “We’re making people fall in love with their own city again,” said Jim Bragg, one of the organizers of the Black Squirrel Garden Walk in the Memorial Park neighborhood of Niagara Falls. “Every yard has a story.” The 1970s and ’80s hit the neighborhood hard, Bragg said. “There’s a perception that all of this should be bulldozed,” Bragg said, but the neighborhood is not as bad as people think. “It’s on its way up.” Efforts by neighborhood…
This year three gardens in Pendleton will be open to the public, and the organizers hope for a full-fledged garden walk next year. The event is dubbed the Pendleton Petal-Pushers Open Gardens and will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 15. If your garden is in the Pendleton area and you’d like to participate in next year’s garden walk, contact Tom Homme Jr. at Tgardenjr@aol.com or 716-210-3091. The three gardens that will be shown this year…
by Connie Oswald Stofko No matter how hot it gets, you can always find a shady spot to sit in the yard of Sharon and Bob Rowitsch of Springville. They have made a point to create seating areas throughout their half-acre landscape. You can see their gardens during the Scene Garden Walk, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 8 in Springville. Pick up maps at Fiddler’s Green Park, Franklin and S. Buffalo St., Springville….
Three garden walks that you might not have heard of before are part of the lineup of our local garden walks this summer. Two of the garden walks are listed for the first time on Gardens Buffalo Niagara (formerly the National Garden Festival), the group that organizes the garden walks, Open Gardens, bus tours and other amazing garden events. One of the new garden walks is a small walk that raising funds for a comfort care home in Attica. There…
by Connie Oswald Stofko A Tiny Garden Contest, Tiny Parade, signature gift bags and a raffle will be part of this year’s Williamsville Garden Walk, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 15. The garden walk headquarters will be at the Welcome Tent in front of Village Hall, 5565 Main St., Williamsville. Free parking is available in the municipal lot at rear. When you stop by, you’ll get more than just a map, said Deb…
by Connie Oswald Stofko You could see– and hear– the nearby convenience store from the backyard. But not anymore. Bernie Grosser and Jim Jankowski now have a private backyard paradise at their home on Tudor Place in West Seneca. I visited them during the fifth annual West Seneca Tour of Gardens held July 23 and 24. In addition to having a noisy store nearby, another challenge of this yard is that it is situated at the top of a…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Peter Kurtzworth is the fourth generation of his family to live in the home at 491 Morgan St., City of Tonawanda. When he married Judy four years ago, she brought pieces of her heritage to his homestead: plants from her former home, from her aunt’s cottage and from her mother’s garden. The Kurtzworths shared their gardens on the City of Tonawanda Garden Walk, which featured a nighttime tour on Friday, July 15 and a daytime tour…
by Connie Oswald Stofko “It’s not meant to look perfect or manicured,” Dr. Kenton Bruce Anderson said of his front yard at 44 Montrose Ave., Buffalo. “It’s meant to be carefree, but look as if somebody takes care of it.” You can see this fun garden on the Samuel P. Capen Garden Walk from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Saturday, July 16. The walk will also feature a night tour called Capen by Night from 8 p.m. – 10 p.m….
by Connie Oswald Stofko When some people go on a garden walk, they want to visit only the gardens that are clustered closely together. If you do that on Lockport in Bloom, you’ll miss this treasure. Jan and Craig Powley have seven acres of land– Three acres are horse pasture, and the horses provide a ready supply of manure for the organic flower gardens and vegetable gardens and the remaining acreage. You can see these gardens in person on the…
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