The Garden Idea Place
June 15th, 2014
Looking for ideas to improve your plain old yard?
A Garden Walk Buffalo home garden with a Japanese flavor.
I can think of no better place than Buffalo.
That’s Buffalo as in the cold New York city next to Lake Erie, the one better known for its snow than its snowbells.
What few people realize is that Buffalo is home to America’s biggest garden tour. It’s called Garden Walk Buffalo, and each last weekend of July, nearly 400 city residents open their gardens for all to ogle.
Visitors can walk from one place to the next for two days, soaking up ideas and interesting plant combinations all the while. Check out some of the gardens in a pair of Photo Galleries I’ve posted from Garden Walk 2011 and 2012.
I’ve been to this amazing event three times now, and I’m impressed every time. I still haven’t seen all of the gardens.
Most of the gardens are on small lots, so space is at a premium.
That’s why you’ll see plenty of flower pots, hanging baskets, vine-covered trellises, window boxes and even vegetable gardens on top of garage roofs. You won’t see a lot of lawn.
Most of the gardeners also have learned about plant varieties that give a lot of bang for the buck throughout the season instead of the bulky and over-used two-week wonders like forsythia and burning bush that so many suburban gardeners use.
Buffalo gardeners also like to decorate their gardens with antiques, statues and assorted found objects.
It gives personality to each of the gardens and adds an overall fun flavor to Garden Walk.
Some people have even begun giving these gardens their own name – “Buffalo-style gardens.”
This year is Buffalo’s 20th Garden Walk. It’s an event well worth seeing.
If you’d like to go, Lowee’s Group Tours and I are offering a three-day, two-night bus trip that includes both of the 2014 Garden Walk days.
The formal Italian-style garden at Sonnenberg Gardens.
We’re leaving on Friday, July 25, and spending the afternoon that day touring Sonnenberg Gardens in Canandaigua, N.Y. Sonnenberg is a 52-acre public garden with a mansion that’s now a New York State Historic Park. Its centerpiece is a formal Italian garden, but it’s also got an excellent Japanese garden, a blue garden, a rose garden, a wooded garden and several large perennial beds.
Then it’s off for a late-afternoon tour and tasting at the Casa Larga Winery in Fairport, N.Y., one of the many family wineries in the Finger Lakes region.
We’re staying at the Double Tree Club hotel in downtown Buffalo that night and Saturday night, July 26.
Both July 26 and July 27 are days to see as many of the Garden Walk gardens as you’d like (or can). Garden Walk hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
On Saturday evening, we’ll have dinner together at the Buffalo Marina, take a catamaran cruise on Lake Erie and have time to see the trial gardens of annual flowers at the marina’s park.
On Sunday morning, we’ll make a stop at the Buffalo Japanese Garden before heading over to Garden Walk for the rest of the day.
The trip cost is $425 per person double, which includes transportation, two nights lodging, four meals and all admissions.
The deadline to sign up is June 20, so if you’re interested, call Lowee’s at 717-657-9658 or email CKelly@ lowees.com.