by Connie Oswald Stofko The most interesting thing about the landscape of Gordon Ballard and Brian Olinski– and trust me, there are many interesting things packed into this space– is that you can’t see straight through from the front to the back. When you step inside the gate, you follow a path lined with tall plants. There are are bushes, tall perennials and ornamental grasses; vining plants climbing up trellis and arbors, and flowers of all kinds displayed in large…
by Connie Oswald Stofko So many of us are looking forward to the start of the 2014 gardening season, but Claudia Kolbe-Hawthorne of the Cleve-Hill section of Cheektowaga is already enjoying the third wave of color in her flower beds. First there were the hyacinths, which were followed by daffodils. When I visited her last week, there were masses of colorful tulips. But even after the tulips are gone, there won’t be a lack of color. The perennials, such as…
“At Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish snow in May’s new-fangled mirth.” Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare by Connie Oswald Stofko Flowers, herbs and trees mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare will be featured in a new Buffalo Shakespeare Garden that is planned for the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, 453 Porter Avenue, Buffalo. The grand opening is planned for spring 2016 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. A fundraiser for the project…
by Connie Oswald Stofko You may be reluctant to start a new garden bed if you have a site that’s less than ideal. Maybe it’s full of stones that you would have to sift out or pick out by hand. Or maybe the soil is compacted or riddled with clay, so you face the prospect of having to work in lots and lots of compost to break it up. An easier solution is to create raised beds using pallets. This idea…
by Connie Oswald Stofko When we want to grow food, we generally think of smallish plants that we would categorize as “vegetables” or “herbs,” such as tomatoes or zucchini or parsley. Today we’re going to challenge you to think bigger. When you think of food, think of trees and shrubs. The concept is called edible landscapes, said Fred Safford, who is in charge of trees and shrubs at Lockwood’s Greenhouses, 4484 Clark Street, Hamburg. It’s a way to work with…
by Connie Oswald Stofko The temperature was in the teens this past weekend, but the vegetables in the grow tunnel at City Honors School in Buffalo are still going strong. In this video, Caesandra Seawell, garden manager, shows us how the grow tunnel can extend the gardening season, allowing us to grow vegetables in autumn and winter in Western New York. She describes how the grow tunnel was constructed, and it seems pretty easy. There have been some developments since…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Over the years, many changes were made to the landscape at Graycliff Estate, 6472 Old Lake Shore Rd., Derby. The historic landmark was designed by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright as a summer home for Isabelle R. Martin and her husband, Darwin D. Martin, a wealthy Buffalo businessman. To bring Graycliff back to Wright’s original vision, the landscape has been restored to look as it did when it was completed in 1931. Reine Hauser, executive…
The Amherst Conservation Advisory Council will be recognized for the Arboretum at Amherst State Park Project at the 2013 Conference on the Environment: A Bi-National Summit be held Thursday and Friday, Oct. 3 and 4, at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Buffalo. The conference is for environmental professionals and community leaders from the United States and Canada. The public can attend the conference’s opening event, an evening with Gord Downie, front man for the band The Tragically Hip, at 6…
by Connie Oswald Stofko Here’s a tip for designing a new perennial bed. You can use this tip now– Fall is a great time to plant perennials and start a new garden in Western New York. There’s still plenty of time for the plants to set roots. We all know one general design rule is to place taller plants in back and shorter plants in front. But Chet Okonczak of Cheektowaga, whose garden we saw in the spring, has interesting…
What would Olmsted do now? That’s the question designers attempted to answer as they created a new landscape for the Richardson Olmsted Complex, a National Historic Landmark. The designers wanted to remain true to the original intent of acclaimed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted while addressing concerns of the 21st century. You can see the new landscape during an event for the public called South Lawn Celebration from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 at the complex, 400…
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