The gorgeous Garden Walk of Buffalo
Garden Walk Buffalo keeps growing and growing, with some properties gaining national media attention
At the first Garden Walk Buffalo in 1995, there were around 30 gardens that were seen by about 600 visitors. Today, only one of those original gardens (at Unitarian Universalist Church) still participates, according to Jim Charlier, Garden Walk president.
And there have been other changes as the walk has taken root and spread. There’s a Web site, a lavishly wonderful book and, recently, lots of national media attention.
This year, there are 305 gardens registered and a projected 45,000 visitors, making it the country’s largest by some accounts. “Buffalo’s got the greatest concentration of beautiful residential gardens I’ve ever seen,” said Jim Childs of Garden Gate magazine, in a quote that Garden Walk uses.
Though it may be tempting to consult a GPS to map out as many stops as possible, remember that one thing hasn’t changed: This is a garden walk, not a marathon. Stop and smell whatever is in bloom. Get ideas for your gardens. Chat with the gardeners and friends you’ll undoubtedly encounter.
It can’t be verified if any intrepid “soles” make it to each garden, but Charlier doesn’t think it can be done. “Terry Ettinger, who’s the Sally Cunningham around Syracuse, came up last year,” said Charlier, “and the most he could do was 30.”
This year, it’s gotten even tougher. The walk now includes Columbus Park, and there’s a new feature called Garden Talk at Bidwell Parkway, where green groups, garden societies and nonprofits have been invited to do demonstrations and to educate visitors about their organizations.
As the years have gone on, it’s clear that gardeners are putting more attention into design, adding hardscape, experimenting with unusual plants and being more playful. Charlier, for example, uses orange and yellow flowers in a row of hanging baskets to match the colors of an outdoor tablecloth at his 215 Lancaster Ave. residence. And he, successfully, searches for purple plants to complement the color of his fence-hugging clematis.
Given the upgrade in individual gardens and the purposeful marketing by the Garden Walk organization, it’s no wonder that national publications have been featuring Buffalo gardens on their covers and inside spreads.
“Mary’s Garden,” just down the street from the Charliers at 75 Lancaster, merited an eight-page spread in Garden Ideas and Outdoor Living, which refers to it as an Urban Sanctuary. It’s overseen by Jim Locke and his wife, Annabelle Irey, both attorneys at Phillips Lytle.
The inspiration for the garden came from Locke’s late wife, Mary, who died in 1999, shortly after realizing her dream of having a Victorian garden planted with shrubs, trees and perennials and incorporating a pond and paths.
When Locke and Irey married in 2001, gardening picked up its pace, once again.
“When I was moving here from Snyder, as I kept bringing my plants over, Jim asked, ‘Don’t you have any clothes?’ ” said Irey. For his part, Locke learned about gardening while growing up on a farm near Cortland. “My brothers still laugh at me because I actually pay for cow manure now,” he said.
One of the legacies of those early gardening days is his grandmother’s dahlia bulbs, which are still flourishing. “That really got me started,” he said. Besides those heirloom plants, he’ll have close to 100 dahlias in 50 varieties, some of them dinner-plate size.
“The Internet is a wonderful thing,” he said. “I order bulbs in November and I forget, and then I order more through the winter. In April all these boxes start arriving.”
Once they ran out of planting space, Irey, in particular, took to containers, which she fills with Elephant Ears, Canna lilies and combinations of annuals, switching them around until they suit her sense of design.
“I’m a bit of a pot-aholic,” she said. “I made Jim stop counting at 200.”
The pots go onto the couple’s attractive porch, along the white picket fence that borders their property and flanking the door to the doghouse of Cornelius, their basset hound.
The couple falls into an easy division of labor, as they split watering duties and he does most of the weeding, while she does the deadheading.
While their garden is picture perfect, they say they don’t plan to be “Garden Walk ready.” “You can’t do that because the lilies bloom when they are ready,” said Locke, who would like his 8-foot-tall Arabesques to bloom the last weekend in July.
Even though they are off the beaten path, they attract hundreds of visitors. Some come to see what’s new. Some to see the passion flower that will grow up a trellis to frame the garage doors. Some to have their picture taken with Cornelius, the garden’s official mascot.
“We always have iced tea,” said Irey, “so maybe that’s why some of them come.”
Ideas abound here: there are strawberry planters filled with herbs; iron grillwork mounted on the side of the garage as a decorative element; and a pathway edged with European wild ginger.
Though the couple can point to successes, they willingly admit mistakes.
There’s the Rose of Sharon that showers seeds over the lawn and garden, sending up unwanted seedlings. “Be sure you get a sterile Rose of Sharon if you don’t want them all over,” Irey warns.
And there’s the nonflowering wisteria vine, that is now tightly wrapped around an arbor. If they had it to do over, they would have purchased a wisteria in bloom — just so they knew it would perform. “It’s only given us one blossom in all the years we’ve had it,” said Locke.
No matter how much time and energy they put into the garden, they always find it rewarding, whether it’s observing the emergence of the dahlias, the pleasing combination in a pot or taking a bouquet into the office.
“We don’t golf,” Locke said, referring to the more common attorney activity. “After the weekend, the golfers are always complaining about how terrible things were on the golf course. We never complain.”
And they follow one rule.
“At the end of a day in the garden,” said Irey, “if we’re still moving, we have to wander through with a glass of wine to enjoy it all.”
THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO
Garden Walk Buffalo hours are 10 a. m. to 4 p. m. July 26 and 27. It’s a self-guided tour with maps, and restrooms, available (on days of tour) at:
Richmond-Summer Senior Center, corner of Richmond Avenue and Summer Street; Buffalo Seminary, 205 Bidwell Parkway; and the Allentown Association, 14 Allen St. Donations are accepted. The Walk has donated approximately $15,000 to beautification projects over the years.
A shuttle bus will make a 30-minute loop at the walk. Stops include the NFTA bus stops, with the entire route highlighted on Garden Walk maps. The open-air bus is sponsored by Arbordale Nurseries; there is no charge. For updated information, visit www.GardenWalkBuffalo.com . Several gardens are featured in the lavishly illustrated book “Garden Walk Buffalo,” which has an accompanying DVD.
Also, Garden Walk gardens are increasingly being noted in national publications, including:
• Bob Fink, 24 Park St.: People Places Plants (Winter and Spring 2007) and Great Gardens, Solutions for Small Spaces (Jan. 2008);
• Carol Siracuse and Tom Palamusa, 39 Granger Place: Great Gardens, Solutions for Small Spaces (Jan. 2008) and Garden Gate (Jan./Feb. 2008 and May/June 2008);
• Alec Humann, 72 Lancaster: Garden Gate (cover, Jan./Feb. 2008); People Places Plants (cover, Spring 2007) and Backyard Retreat (2008);
• Jennifer and Jim Guercio, 755 West Delavan: Garden Gate (January 2007 and Jan./Feb. 2008); Backyard Retreat (2008); Containers Made Easy (2008); People Places Plants (Spring, 2007); also being photographed this summer for Better Homes & Gardens for next year;
• Ellie Dorritie, 415 Summer St.: People Places Plants (Spring 2007) and Great Backyards (Feb. 2008); and Backyard Retreat (2008);
• Dinah Gamin and Lynn James, 42 Orton: People Places Plants (Spring 2007);
• Martin Kemp and Terry Williams, 82 North Pearl: the San Francisco Chronicle;
(Aug. 15, 2007);
• Cynnie Gaasch, 440 Massachusetts Ave.: the San Francisco Chronicle; (Aug.
15, 2007);
• Elaine and Bruce
Friedhaber, 63 Norwood Ave.: Great Backyards (Feb. 2008);
• John Hochadel and Jeffrey Tooke, 2 Union Place: Great Backyards (Feb. 2008) and Country Gardens (2004);
• Jim Locke and Annabelle Irey, 75 Lancaster Ave.: Better Homes and Gardens’ Garden Ideas and Outdoor Living (Summer 2008); People Places Plants (Spring 2007); Great Gardens, Solutions for Small Spaces (Jan. 2008); and Containers Made Easy (2008);
• Jim and Leslie Charlier, 215 Lancaster: Lake Erie Living (June-July 2008) and People Places Plants (Spring 2007);
• David Bender, 167 Richmond: People Places Plants (Spring 2007); being photographed this summer for a Better Homes & Gardens specialty publication;
• The Darwin Martin House Conservatory, 125 Jewett Parkway: Garden Design (May 2008);
• Michael Banks, 16 Rabin Terrace: photographed for an upcoming issue of Garden Ideas and Outdoor Living.
