Here’s an outdoor arrangement to welcome visitors to your home. This idea comes from Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses, 118 South Forest Rd., Williamsville. Greens are placed upright in a plastic pot and decorated with a big red bow and pine cones. The greens are fresh-cut and locally grown. There’s soil in the pot to hold the branches in place. Rain will keep the soil wet, adding more weight and helping keep the pot stable. The arrangement looks charming in the…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko Have you gotten any rain lately? If so, lucky you! I’ve been hearing forecasts of thunderstorms, and I happily anticipated having my rain barrels refilled. But we got only lightning. There was barely enough rain to dampen the porch– and the areas under the plastic lawn chairs stayed dry! We’re significantly below average for precipitation, said John Farfaglia, extension educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Niagara County. The last summer that was comparable to this was…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko Since it’s the beginning of a new year, we thought it would be fun to look at some of the current trends in floral design. In this video, Maggie Wittmer, floral designer at Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses, leads us through the new styles. Some trends, such as smaller, compact designs in flower arrangements, have evolved for practical reasons. Some people simply don’t have a lot of room to display a huge arrangement at home or on…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko Well, it’s official. This was the coldest February on record in Western New York. It’s been a tough winter. Some of us got seven feet of snow in November alone. Even areas of Western New York that don’t normally get much snow have two feet or more on the ground. People are tired of shoveling, of trying to walk on snowy sidewalks, of driving through snow. Then there’s the cold. Day after day of below zero…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko First, let me say that I sincerely hope you and your loved ones are safe. Since this is a gardening magazine, we’ll talk about what the Snowvember storm means for your garden, but I do want to let you know that I understand how serious this storm was. It was dangerous. People were injured and people died. There was property damage, too. Even if you got through it unscathed, it was scary. My thoughts and prayers…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko We gardeners in Western New York are spoiled. During the height of the National Garden Festival, we can visit beautiful gardens– many, many beautiful gardens– four days a week. It’s been less than two weeks since the last event of the National Garden Festival ended, but many of us miss it already. There are still lovely gardens to visit in Western New York. One of them is the Joan and Victor Fuzak Memorial Gardens at the…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko We had a bit of warm sunshine this weekend and it was wonderful to do some outside chores. My husband raked the autumn leaves off the front lawn and I yanked a few early weeds from garden beds near a sidewalk. But there still isn’t a lot you can do in your garden yet, said Teresa Buchanan, general manager at Lockwood’s Greenhouses, 4484 Clark St., Hamburg. “I would tell people to use care in their gardens…...
I visited the yard of Jim “Wak” Nowicki during Garden Walk Buffalo in July. He had lots of interesting elements in his summer garden, including live fish in bowls suspended from tree branches, which we’ll talk about more toward the end of this article. But he doesn’t relegate his creativity to the summer months. He took a few moments out of the tour of his summer gardens to give me a sneak peek at his Halloween decorations that were stored…...
After having their house built five years ago, Paul and Debbie Acquisto of 270 South Lane, Grand Island, enlisted the help of landscapers to get them started with their garden design. They shared their gardens during the Grand Island Garden Tour, a new garden walk that was part of the National Garden Festival this year. It was held July 6 and 7. Even though they worked with landscapers, the couple didn’t attempt to do everything at once. Every year they…...
I was entranced when I saw the exhibit on miniature floral designs this spring at the National Garden Clubs convention held in Buffalo. Miniature arrangements are something anyone can do and you can be as creative as you like. In flower shows, a miniature flower arrangement can’t exceed five inches in any direction, and sometimes the rule is set at three inches, said Carolyn Doerflein, National Garden Clubs accredited master flower show judge, who created the exhibit. At home you…...