The Bodacious Gardens of Buffalo

Long ago, when childhood meanderings were confined to exploring my city block, I knew every crack in the sidewalk, every pothole in the street, and every inch of what might be called grass on our pallet-sized lawn. I also knew which tiny West Side backyards hosted vegetable gardens, brimming with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, so Sicilian families could make their Sunday spaghetti sauce from scratch. But finding a flower garden in this urban hardscape was a rare and astonishing treat.

Though raised as a city girl, today I am interested in all things gardening, and everywhere I travel I seek out gardens, looking for tips and tricks to improve my own. So imagine my surprise when I went on my first Buffalo Garden Walk a few years ago, through the same crowded city streets of my youth, and found house after house with flowers spilling out of window boxes, former lawns, driveway strips, and sidewalk borders in a dizzying array of colors, shapes, and sizes—plots as healthy and beautiful as any found behind an English cottage or along Monet’s pond in France. Now in its 27^th year, Buffalo’s Garden Walk showcases more than 300 gardens on the West Side, and attracts some 65,000 visitors over a two-day period.  

For those of you not from Buffalo, who know little about the city beyond its massive snowfalls and spicy chicken wings, it might surprise you to learn that Buffalo is now known for its greenspaces and gardens. Realizing this, I went to the Garden Walk this year with two questions in mind: why are flower gardens so unexpectedly lush and green in this cold weather (USDA Zone 6) urban environment, and what can I learn from Buffalo gardeners to improve my own?[1]

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Why are these gardens thriving? Well, here are my theories. As a northern city, Buffalo’s long summer days provide flowering plants with more daylight growing hours. Chilly temperatures in Buffalo last well into spring, allowing bad bugs and plant pathogens to remain dormant for longer periods. Summer temperatures, typically between 70-80 degrees, are ideal for most plants, especially annuals. Buffalo also has very good natural soil, typically fine to fine-loamy till, inherited from long ago glacial deposits, and its location, lying on the windward side of Lake Erie and the Niagara River, provides gardens with plenty of natural moisture throughout the year. Finally, after long, tough winters, Buffalo gardeners strive to make the most of their short growing season by devoting extraordinary time and energy to their gardens when warm weather finally arrives.

I now live in the mid-Atlantic region, an area with shorter, milder winters and hot, humid summers. What if anything did I learn from the Buffalo Garden Walk that I could apply to my own gardens?

1. Recognize that gardens crowded into small spaces have high impact and give a visual impression of lushness and vitality. Make the most of any decent patch of soil you own.
2. Be unafraid of incorporating unusual things in your garden design for added interest. I loved the “recycled household objects” that were artistic elements in many of Buffalo’s gardens.
3. Make sure the hard structures surrounding your garden complement its beauty. This includes everything from garden sheds to stepping stones.
4. Use Milorganite (a product made from recycled wastewater) to deter deer, rabbits, and voles. It is organic and apparently highly effective.
5. Try the aesthetically and aromatically pleasing cocoa shell mulch many Buffalo gardeners use, both to suppress weeds and provide beneficial nutrients to the soil (just make sure your dogs don’t eat it).

Perhaps the most important lesson I took from the garden walk this year is that nothing transforms a neighborhood like beautiful gardens. Not only do they enhance the structural and architectural beauty of the old homes on the West Side (many built in the 1800s), they signal that this is again a neighborhood where people take pride in their homes and community. You can’t put a price on that.

Have you ever gone on the Buffalo Garden Walk? What was your experience like? Do you have garden walks in your new hometown and how do they compare? I would love to hear from you!

[1] For a wonderful reference book on Buffalo’s gardens see Buffalo-Style Gardens by Jim Charlier and Sally Cunningham.

Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.