by Connie Oswald Stofko The Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens is again holding its Great Plant Sale online, and you can order now. The deadline to order is May 4, but don’t wait–many plants sell out well before then. I am highlighting just three here: I’m proud that Buffalo-NiagaraGardening.com is a sponsor of the Great Plant Sale again this year! About the Great Plant Sale Last year, “A lot of people were amazed by the quality of the plants” they…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko Are you ready to see colorful flowers, unique garden art and an overall beautiful landscape? In this video, Jay Jinge Hu, who shares his own landscape on Open Gardens, takes us on a tour of the gardens of Mitch Flynn and Ellen Goldstein, who will again this year share their landscape on Open Gardens and Garden Walk Buffalo. Whatever you enjoy about a garden, you can probably find in these gardens. There’s the sculpture Flynn made…...
The Genesee County Master Gardeners will hold monthly Garden Talk programs in person at the Cornell Cooperative Extension office, 420 East Main St., Batavia, or via Zoom. The programs will start at noon on Thursdays and can be 30 to 60 minutes long, depending on the topic. This free series is open to all, but registration is required. For a Zoom link, click on the link for the program you want to attend. A Zoom link will be sent to your…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko As 2023 comes to a close, it’s time to take a look at the year in gardening in Western New York. Let’s start with events. There were classes, workshops, exhibits, plant exchanges, sales and garden club meetings—all helpful and fun. (All the garden club meetings on my Events page are open to the public.) Then there were the garden walks and Open Gardens. More than 400 gardens were open for you to visit—for free! Garden Walk…...
Trees are valuable in many ways, and it really hits home when you link numbers to the value. Here are just a few of the statistics in the article “The Value of Trees By the Numbers” in the newest edition of The Optimistic Gardener: The Optimistic Gardener is produced by the Master Gardeners of Cornell Cooperative Extension in Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties. Find the newsletter on the gardening page of Cornell Cooperative Extension in Chautauqua (on the lefthand side) and in Cattaraugus (on the…...
Garden Walk Buffalo is looking for submissions of original artwork to promote the 2024 event, its 30th anniversary. This is an opportunity to share your artwork with hundreds of local gardeners and tens of thousands of visitors from around the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Entries are due Wednesday, January 31. Here are the submission guidelines: Email your entry to aclark@gardensbuffaloniagara.com. Include ART ENTRY in the subject line. If possible, zip your files or use a service like wetransfer. See past posters here. See more information…...
Urban Roots Cooperative Garden Market in Buffalo will host a free discussion series called Gardeners Give and Take starting in January. Urban Roots is also partnering with Grassroots Gardens and the Massachusetts Avenue Project for a series of free classes and workshops. More workshops will be announced in February. Gardeners Give and Take An informal discussion on everything gardening will take place at 10 a.m. Saturdays on Jan. 6, Jan. 20, Feb. 3 and Feb 17 at Urban Roots, 428…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko Every month, when I ran out of my prescription medicine, I would get a new supply of pills in a new bottle. Then I would throw the empty bottle from the previous month into the trash, and it would end up in a landfill. I would throw out another bottle the next month. And the next month. And the next. I hated to throw out the bottles, but the recycling company in our area doesn’t take…...
Welcome holiday visitors with an arrangement of evergreens for outdoors. You can find an assortment at Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses, 118 South Forest Rd., Williamsville. The greens are set into Mischler’s Mix, the same potting mixture they use for growing plants. By the time the cut greens have lost their lustre, you can remove them and plant spring pansies in the pot. Use the evergreen arrangement as is or set the pot into an urn. Display it on your porch,…...
Be a citizen scientist and join one of the many Christmas bird counts that the National Audubon Society will hold from Thursday, Dec. 14 to Friday, Jan. 5. The Christmas bird counts have been taking place for more than 120 years. The information from these has been used in hundreds of analyses, peer-reviewed publications and government reports over the decades. One thing that scientists have discovered from the bird counts is that the number of birds has decreased dramatically in…...