by Connie Oswald Stofko Majestic trees rise high above the huge backyard of Kim and Seth Kaiser. “I retired a couple years ago,” Kim said, “but when I was working, this was my respite.” The size of the backyard itself, 200 feet deep, is remarkable. “Who would ever think this is back here?” a visitor wondered. Kim replied: “It’s a surprise!” When the Kaisers moved into their East Aurora home 33 years ago, “There were no flowers here,” Kim said….
by Connie Oswald Stofko The forecast for the coming week calls for daytime temperatures above freezing, so if we do get any snow, it should melt. That means you’ll have time to easily walk around your yard and prepare your gardens for another onslaught of snow. When the temperatures do get colder, chances are we will get lake effect snow again. Lake Erie still hasn’t iced over, so cold wind picking up moisture from the lake can fall on land…
by Connie Oswald Stofko David Clark, CNLP has sad arborvitaes in his Hamburg yard. “They’re about 15 feet tall, but they’re bent lower than my knees,” he told me over the weekend. While that’s bad, it’s not as bad as it could be because the soil wasn’t frozen yet. The roots of the arborvitaes could come out of the ground a little bit and allow the shrubs to tip, preventing the trunk from snapping. Your azaleas and rhododendrons will be…
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…
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…
by Connie Oswald Stofko I often write articles about what you can do your garden right now. But today, what you can do in your garden depends on whether you live in the northern part of Western New York or the south. Wyoming, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Southern Erie counties are getting heavy lake effect snow. The rest of Western New York is looking at a few flurries. But as we gardeners know, the weather in Western New York can fluctuate….
by Connie Oswald Stofko What plants will last through the winter in your garden? You can figure that out by knowing what hardiness zone you are in. And you may be in a warmer zone than you thought. A new version of the Plant Hardiness Zone Map was released last week by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature. The zones go from coldest to warmest; 5 is colder…
by Connie Oswald Stofko The decorative gardens of Tom and Darcie Homme in Pendleton look great in winter, spring, summer and fall. I shared them with you in 2021. What I didn’t show you was the area where he was starting a wildflower garden. It didn’t look like much then, but it’s maturing now. He’s rewilding; turning some of his lawn back to nature. We can see the wildflower garden, as well as the decorative gardens, thanks to a video produced…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Where do our pollinators go in the winter? A lot of them stay right here in Western New York. You may have created a welcoming habitat for them in spring, summer and autumn with native plants. Now it’s time for us to create a welcoming habitat for them during winter. It’s easy, too! Just leave the leaves. Why leave the leaves? We need pollinators, and pollinators need those fallen leaves in order to survive over the…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Paul and Paula Moloney have lived in their house on Tuscarora Road in South Buffalo for less than three years, but they have transformed their landscaping by taking one thing out. Grass. There’s no grass in the front yard. No grass in the back, either. “We both hate lawns,” Paul said, “and I don’t like mowing lawns. I never have luck with lawns; they always looked like crap.” The couple started with the garden area nearest…
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