by Connie Oswald Stofko After about 20 years of adding trees and garden beds to their Grand Island landscape, Pat and Gary Scott are slowing down and even reducing the size of some beds. “We have to tone it down a little because it’s a lot of work,” Pat said. “If the gardens get too big, it’s overwhelming.” I visited the Scotts on last year’s Grand Island Garden Walk. This year the Grand Island Garden Walk will be held from 10…
Gardeners from the Peace Bridge to Main Street and from Canalside to the Scajaquada can be part of the 2018 Garden Walk Buffalo. May 15 is the deadline to sign up to share your garden on Garden Walk Buffalo. You can sign up online. There is no contest and no prizes; the objective of the garden walk has always been to encourage neighborhood beautification and to promote community pride. Just fill out the registration form and your garden can become part…
by Connie Oswald Stofko In the past, people would hide their vegetable gardens in a back corner of the yard. That’s changing, and more and more people boldly display their veggies in garden beds among their ornamental plants. One problem is that vegetables often need even more protection from critters than ornamental plants do. Jane Bednarczyk protects her vegetable plants, and she does it in a way that’s not only attractive, it’s a focal point of the yard. Bednarczyk…
Artwork is being sought for a garden art competition that offers multiple opportunities for artists including publication in a book, feature on a garden walk poster, and an exhibition. The “Beauty in Our Backyard: 2018 Gardening Art Competition,” produced by the University Heights Arts Association (UHAA), will offer three cash prizes plus an exhibition of the top 25 finalists’ work. The first-place winner’s art will be used to create the official poster for the Samuel P. Capen Garden Walk. The cash prizes are, first place, $100;…
Garden Walk Buffalo is seeking submissions of original artwork to use on posters and other promotional materials for the 2018 event. The submission deadline is Jan. 31, 2018. You can submit any form of art: painting in any medium, photograph, drawing or mixed media. You are limited to five entries. Keep artwork simple. It needs to reproduce well on a variety of materials and items that are sold to promote Garden Walk Buffalo. Artwork should be considered wearable and saleable for…
by Connie Oswald Stofko When Pat Noonan moved into her Hamburg home in 2011, the yard was totally bare. Noonan, now 88, was at a point in her life when some people give up gardening. And at any point in your life, starting from scratch on a landscape can be daunting. But with help from neighbors and relatives, she now has a landscape that she enjoys. She shared her garden on the Hamburg Garden Walk on Saturday and Sunday, July…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Rosemary Lyons has an ingenious way to squeeze plants into the flagstone patio that takes up all of her tiny yard. One place where there aren’t any pavers is where the wrought iron fence is set into the ground. Lyons set some bricks on each side of the fence, then filled the area around the fence with fresh soil and lots of compost. There was enough room to plant purple pole beans, and the fence was…
by Connie Oswald Stofko “We’re making people fall in love with their own city again,” said Jim Bragg, one of the organizers of the Black Squirrel Garden Walk in the Memorial Park neighborhood of Niagara Falls. “Every yard has a story.” The 1970s and ’80s hit the neighborhood hard, Bragg said. “There’s a perception that all of this should be bulldozed,” Bragg said, but the neighborhood is not as bad as people think. “It’s on its way up.” Efforts by neighborhood…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Looking at her yard when it was torn up during construction work, Pamela Rose was at first horrified. Then she stopped and thought, “What’s the opportunity here?” Turning a calamity into an opportunity is one of the tips she shared with gardeners on how to deal with household construction that damages your landscape during the Parkside Garden Tour on Sunday, June 25. You can also see the property on Open Gardens. She and her husband Joel…
This year three gardens in Pendleton will be open to the public, and the organizers hope for a full-fledged garden walk next year. The event is dubbed the Pendleton Petal-Pushers Open Gardens and will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 15. If your garden is in the Pendleton area and you’d like to participate in next year’s garden walk, contact Tom Homme Jr. at Tgardenjr@aol.com or 716-210-3091. The three gardens that will be shown this year…
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