by Connie Oswald Stofko You can enjoy spring flowers inside during winter, weeks before they appear outside in gardens, but you may not want to do it the way they do it at the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens. First of all, they force bulbs on a grand scale. (Forcing is getting a plant to bloom at a time when it wouldn’t normally bloom.) Last week they planted about 21,000 bulbs in pots. They can’t plant more because “there’s…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko I will present “Get Crafty in Your Garden” at the meeting of the Ken-Sheriton Garden Club at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14 at St, Mark’s Lutheran Church. 576 Delaware Rd., Kenmore. In my presentation, I’ll show you tips on crafts you can make for your garden as well as from your garden. One of the crafts is the inexpensive and easy-to-make glass mushroom decoration for your garden seen here. Like all the events we list on…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko If you have bad patches of lawn, you can take steps in November to repair them by using what is called the dormant seeding method. November isn’t the best time to sow grass seed, but if you missed the ideal period (mid-August to mid-September), you can sow in November, said John Farfaglia, extension educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Niagara County. Don’t plant grass seed in late September or in October because the seed will sprout,…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko I have sunchokes that I will share for free, but there’s one catch. You have to pick them up or get someone you know to pick them up. I just don’t want to have to mail them. I’m in the Eggertsville area of Amherst. If you don’t get out this way, you probably have a neighbor or cousin or coworker who does. If you’d like some sunchokes, email me at connie@buffaloniagaragardening.com so we can arrange for…...
Nearly every week someone doesn’t receive their issue of Buffalo-NiagaraGardening.com because they changed their email address and forgot to re-subscribe. Once your old account is closed, you’ll no longer get any email that is sent to that old email address, and that includes issues of Buffalo-NiagaraGardening.com. There’s an easy solution. As soon as you know your new email address, use it to subscribe using your new email address so you don’t miss a single issue. Even if there’s some overlap…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko The bad news is that some of the trees in the arboretum (outdoor collection of trees) at the Buffalo and Erie Botanical Gardens were damaged and had to be removed. The good news is that new trees will be planted in their place, and the new specimens were chosen to fit into the plan originally designed by famed landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted. Even more good news is that the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy expects to…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko When Pat Noonan moved into her Hamburg home in 2011, the yard was totally bare. Noonan, now 88, was at a point in her life when some people give up gardening. And at any point in your life, starting from scratch on a landscape can be daunting. But with help from neighbors and relatives, she now has a landscape that she enjoys. She shared her garden on the Hamburg Garden Walk on Saturday and Sunday, July…...
You can help scientists through Project FeederWatch by counting the birds you see at your backyard feeder from November through early April. FeederWatchers periodically count the birds they see at their feeders and send their counts to Project FeederWatch. FeederWatch data help scientists track broadscale movements of winter bird populations and long-term trends in bird distribution and abundance. You can count birds as often as every week, or as infrequently as you like. The schedule is completely flexible. All you need…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko “Alliums are flowers that people see in the spring, and they come in expecting to buy them,” said Mark Yadon, vice president at Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses in Williamsville. “It’s showy and they think, ‘I’ve got to have that.’” Although these great flowers appear in spring, you have to plant them in fall. “Right now is the time to plant them,” Yadon said. You can plant them through mid-November, if you can still work the soil…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko Is it possible that there could be an easy way to keep the red lily leaf beetle from damaging lilies? A local gardener may have stumbled across a way: cedar mulch. John Farfaglia, extension educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Niagara County, was contacted by the gardener. She had happened to put cedar mulch in the bed where she has lilies and discovered that the pests didn’t bother her lilies. “It might just be a coincidence”…...