by Connie Oswald Stofko We’ve had a frost, but that doesn’t mean you have to abandon flower gardening for the year. You can stretch the season well into November with frost-tolerant annuals. While many people are familiar with mums and pansies, there are many more choices, such as the straw flower, seen here. “Many people have them as annuals during the summertime, but they don’t realize the straw flower is frost tolerant,” said Mark Yadon, vice president of Mischler’s Florist…
by Connie Oswald Stofko “As you can tell, I like the ripple of water,” said Jaime Pabilonia. He and his wife Linda have many water features in the gardens of “Waterscape,” their Youngstown home. “I was born in a place with a waterfall,” said Jaime , who is originally from the Philippines. When he moved from the Philippines, he chose to settle in Niagara Falls because the falls is one of the natural wonders of the world. Jaime and Linda,…
Adventures in Organic Gardening By Laura Sileo-Lepkyj You know the “Set it and forget it” motto on the infomercial? That’s the kind of gardener I am. I set the plant in the ground and forget about it. I describe my method as survival-of-the-fittest gardening. No special coddling, practically zero watering, and certainly no umbrellas set up to protect delicate plants from the sun. Seriously? People actually do that? If it doesn’t survive where I plonk it, it just wasn’t meant…
The median gardens that were started 10 years ago on Minnesota Ave. in Buffalo had begun to fade. Residents who had been active in maintaining the gardens “moved, passed away or got tied up with their busy lives,” said Yvonne Brown, a member of the Minnesota Avenue Block Club. The median gardens got new life this year with funding from a City of Buffalo Livable Communities Block Grant, private donations and donations from the residents themselves. “Now we’re working on…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Container plantings are so versatile. If your outdoor space is limited to an apartment balcony, a container can serve as your entire garden. Containers can also decorate porches and patios, or fill in bare spots in a larger garden. They can be created in any style. Visitors got lots of great ideas for container plantings at the Poetry & Posies standard flower show of the East Aurora Garden Club on Saturday and Sunday, July 31 and…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Whether you’ve signed up to exhibit your garden on one of the 17 garden walks that are part of the National Garden Festival in Buffalo, or whether you’re expecting company, you want it to look its best. Sally Cunningham, project coordinator for the the National Garden Festival in Buffalo (now Gardens Buffalo Niagara), shares some tips. She is a horticulturist, author and garden consultant. You can catch her weekly on WIVB-TV (Channel 4) on Sunday Mornings, 8…
by Connie Oswald Stofko You can visit all of Cherie St. Pierre’s gardens in Eggertsville as part of the Open Gardens program of the National Garden Festival, but one is so different than the others that we had to give it an article of its own. While St. Pierre’s home and an adjoining property have traditional yards, her rental property across the street at 3887 Bailey has no grass in its front or backyard! She loves gardening, but the retired…
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