by Connie Oswald Stofko Do you know that there are people who essentially throw their leaves away? They rake them out to the curb and wait for someone to haul them away. I find that amazing because those autumn leaves are a valuable commodity for your garden– yet they’re free! Here are five tips on making the most of autumn leaves. Tip #1: Use leaves as mulch around your perennials to help them survive the winter. If we have a…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko It’s autumn, and here’s an outside project you can do today: create a lasagna garden. Lasagna gardening is a method where you apply material to your garden bed in layers, like in a lasagna. Lasagna gardening has several advantages: You don’t have to till or dig your garden bed. The technique works with clay or other poor soil. You can create a new bed over lawn. It’s not labor intensive. It’s organic. You don’t have to…...
Here’s a question from a reader: Hi! I have another hydrangea tree question. My H. Paniculata Limelight is now three years old. The first two years I had large blooms that started out slightly green, changed to a bright white, then turned pink. (See the bright white blooms here.) This year there were many smaller blooms. Some stayed green from August to the present (Oct. 7), and a few went from green to white and back to green. I missed…...
It’s officially autumn in Western New York, but that doesn’t mean we’re done working in our gardens. We’ve had a lovely stretch of warm and sunny weather, so it’s been a pleasure to work outside, and that pleasant weather should continue for a few more days. Whether you want to be productive or are just looking for an excuse to get outdoors, here are some things you can do in your garden now. Water your plants It has been sunny…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko We don’t live the way people did at the turn of the last century, and that’s reflected in our landscapes, said Laura L. S. Burchfield, co-author of American Home Landscapes: A Design Guide to Creating Period Garden Styles. Back then, people had outhouses. They needed a space for livestock. An area called the drying yard was set aside for hanging laundry. By the 1920s and ’30s, there were garages for cars, large lawns and even stone…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko A combination of gardening problems faces Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village, the 35-acre historical interpretive center in Amherst that showcases 19th century buildings set up like a village. Much of the landscape is boggy, so gardens can be wet early in the season. In addition, there’s no irrigation system, and hoses can’t reach all the gardens, so there’s no easy way to water plants during the dry summer months. To deal with these conditions, Buffalo Niagara Heritage…...
by Connie Oswald Stofko I visited the garden of Karen Deutschlander of Lancaster last summer as she was preparing for the Lancaster Garden Walk, then I showed you how she uses vignettes in her garden. She has quite a collection of other garden art, too. On this first day of autumn, let’s take another peek at some of the art in her garden. I hope it inspires you to get creative in your garden, too. Note: Deutschlander brings in her art for…...
It’s just a matter of weeks (or perhaps days) before we get frost in Western New York. Although he doesn’t know of any parts of Western New York that have gotten frost yet, there was a frost advisory Sunday night for the Town of Andover in Allegany County, said Mark Holt, Agriculture-Horticulture community educator for Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties. That frost advisory prompted him to send along some tips on protecting tender plants from frost…....
by Connie Oswald Stofko Are mums perennials? For almost all the varieties that you will find for sale in Western New York, the answer is no. Local growers will call them fall mums or garden mums, but they won’t call them hardy because they’re not. And they definitely won’t call them perennials. There are two reasons that mums aren’t considered perennials, according to staff at Lockwood’s Greenhouses in Hamburg and Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses in Williamsville. The first reason is…...
Here’s a great container called “Winter Green” created by Mark Yadon of Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses, 118 South Forest Rd., Williamsville. You can plant up a container like this in spring and enjoy it throughout summer, autumn and even into winter. “It will stay nice probably until Christmas, even if it gets snowed on,” Yadon said. “More people have to do this.” Of course, the gardening season doesn’t end with Labor Day, and you can still plant up a container…...
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