Four Buffalo gardens - spread over 11 pages!
Each of these gardens is a long-time Garden Walk participant. The Little Summer Street garden above, belongs to Ellie. No last name needed. She’s sort of like Cher that way. Everyone on the West Side of Buffalo knows Ellie, as she’s a recently-retired popular postal clerk with a heart of gold and more passion that she knows what to do with.

She’s an anti-war and social activist (when not gardening). I invited her to a Garden Walk media party last summer, but she already had plans to go to the Peace Bridge (our bridge to Canada in her neighborhood) to protest the 46-year-old U.S.-Cuban travel ban, which makes it unlawful for U.S. citizens to go to Cuba, but even more importantly, severely limits Cuban-American’s access to their homeland and families.

She’s the one we turn to when we need some gardening activism as well. She’s known as her neighborhood’s guerilla gardener. She mobilizes her neighborhood to enter the Garden Walk each year. I know, when I get 20 Garden Walk applications, all in the same handwriting, that she’s been busy on behalf of her neighbors. If you live near her, and you come home from work and find new perennials planted in your front yard, you can be 99.99% sure Ellie’s seen a spot that needs filling and had an extra plant. To listen to a radio (WBFO) interview with Ellie, visit here. Of, Ellie, the reporter, Joyce Kryszak, says, "Once in a great while I have the privilege of meeting and interviewing someone as special and rare as Ellie and I am reminded why I love my job. Thanks for your help arranging the interview."

Ellie’s one of my heroes as well, if you couldn’t tell.

The

Cottage

Another great garden in the magazine is the garden of my Garden Walk co-chairs, John & Jeff, the Vice President & Treasurer of Garden Walk, respectively. It shows their lovely & lively garden in front of their little cottage on Union Place, just one block away from Ellie’s garden above. Their garden was also featured on the cover of Country Garden magazine a few years back. it’s a popular stop on the Walk. John’s a florist, one of the handful of professionals on the Walk.

The 1880s farmhouse

Next up is the Garden of long-time Garden Walk committee member and a past co-chair of the Walk herself, Elaine.

Again, her delightful garden is just a block or so away from the two gardens above. I mention this because Buffalo has an amazing number of great urban gardens that are surprisingly close. When Garden Gate magazine was here to shoot last June, there was one instance where they shot a spectacular garden that is a big hit on Garden Walk and literally just turned the cameras around to shoot another garden across the street they used on a recent front cover of the magazine. The Garden Gate editor told me that they’ve never seen so many great gardens, in such close proximity, in any city they’ve travelled to. And they travel a lot.

Anyway, back to Elaine. Her 1880s farmhouse (the city grew up around it), was where she started experimenting with an herb garden. Which grew. And grew. And now includes a memorial garden (for her late father-in-law), a rock garden and a conservation garden of plants salvaged from construction sites. Elaine still maintains the Garden Walk data-bases, a mind-numbing, labor-intensive chore that no one else has the stomach for. God love Elaine.

And then, there’s the Gordon garden.

A very popular stop on Garden Walk, photos just can’t do this garden justice. It HAS to be walked through. The green exuberance just never seems to end in this yard. Every corner you turn there’s some great arrangement, juxtaposition or assortment of VERY healthy plants. You could spend three hours in his yard and feel you’ve not seen enough. Gordon, and partner Brian, have created a garden that is over the top and excessive. I know this is true, because Great Backyards gave the garden a four-page spread - this garden cannot be contained in two pages.

“On Gordon’s Pond” is the sign by one of his ponds, and on ponds his reputation is built. He speaks to gardening groups (and anyone that will listen) on pond garden planning, construction and maintenance. This article focused on his ponds, but his tiki bar pavilion (not shown) is what I crave.

There is also a page devoted to “Expert Solutions for Common Challenges” in this issue. Three of the four photos on this page are of John, Elaine & Gordon’s front gardens. All Buffalo garden images were shot by photographer Don Zinteck.

Oh, there’s some other gardens in the magazine too.

The 146-page, newsstand-sold-only magazine, published by Harris Publishing’s Country Collectibles of NY, NY, contains stories and articles about 42 different “garden getaways” from around the country They’re available at most national bookstores chains. I bought mine at Wegmans, a large, regional grocery store with a good magazine section.