by Connie Oswald Stofko I once saw a garden that was the kind I wanted to have. It was full of healthy, vibrant flowers. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the plants in that garden were the same ones I already had in my own garden. “Why doesn’t my garden look like yours?” I asked the gardener. “What are you doing that I’m not doing?” Her response: “Water when it rains; water when it doesn’t.” Think about it. You might…...

by Connie Oswald Stofko Choosing native plants for our gardens seems like a recent trend, but native plants were used in landscaping about a hundred years ago. Ellen Biddle Shipman, the pioneering landscape architect who worked on the gardens at historic Graycliff from 1929 to 1931, chose native plants for the picking garden. The plants she used were native somewhere in North or South America, but not necessarily native to Western New York. For example, she chose lantana, which is native…...

by Connie Oswald Stofko It’s wonderful to enjoy the beauty of the hundreds of gardens that we get to visit here in Western New York. It’s even better when we get an idea that we can use in our own garden! Here are five simple tips to make your garden extra special. In the photo above, you see lots of flowers in bloom. But what don’t you see? Garbage cans! Two simple doors hide what could be an ugly distraction…....