Adventurous paint colors adorn many homes on the garden walk
Charming arbor with big leaf hydrangeas, which we saw in bloom everywhere
Overflowing window-boxes, inviting porches were a feature in the cottage district
Most people see Buffalo as a down-on-its-luck Rust Belt city, but we saw neighborhoods united by love of plants and gardens and attractive, lovingly-preserved 19th-century homes that range from cottages to colonial revivals. The gardens offer a smorgasbord of horticultural delights — perennial borders, colorful annuals, rock gardens, water gardens, and shade gardens — their styles ranging from cottage-garden exuberance to Japanese-inspired restraint.
Pond and waterfall offer tranquillity in this back garden
The success of Garden Walk Buffalo is truly inspiring, and the organizers have even published a coffee-table book of pictures of these gorgeous gardens and stories about the Walk’s history and profiles of some of the gardeners involved. Here’s a quote from the book that got my attention:
“There are several instances where visitors to the Garden Walk have followed up their tour by purchasing a home in one of the neighborhoods — one couple bought a home that had been abandoned for five years. And it is also a verifiable fact that housing values have risen in each neighborhood that has participated in Garden Walk.”
Outdoor seating -- inviting, even in the rain we had that morning
I’m intrigued because I live outside the city of Hamilton, Ontario, which also has a gardening culture — for more than 15 years the Hamilton Spectator newspaper through its garden writer Rob Howard has organized Hamilton area Open Gardens Week, free self-guided garden tours of private gardens, and anyone who wants to participate, either to show their garden or visit gardens, is welcome. And, like Buffalo, the city of Hamilton has seen a major decline in manufacturing and steel-making, and for years now has had a huge challenges with high unemployment, declining housing stock and urban poverty, particularly in the lower city.
No lawn here at the home of Garden Walk president Jim Charlier
Could this work in Hamilton?
Wouldn’t it be something if the example of Garden Walk Buffalo could inspire neighborhoods in the lower city of Hamilton to similar revitalization? I spoke to Jim Charlier, president of the non-profit volunteer committee that heads the event, and he told me that he is more than happy to share the blueprint, which the Buffalo volunteer committee has developed over the years, with interested gardeners in other cities.
Could this would be a workable project for Hamilton, perhaps building on the foundation of Open Gardens Week? Along with or even instead of top-down development — in the form of mega projects like a stadium or light rail transit — could revitalization also come from the bottom up, through neighborhood folks cultivating gardens? These are most intriguing questions, don’t you think?
For more information:
Read about the history of Garden Walk Buffalo; visit Buffalo from Canada.
A sincere thank you goes to Jim Charlier and Elizabeth Licata for hosting our group of garden bloggers and writers. We had a lovely time: kudos to you both, for orchestrating such warm hospitality and getting us all inspired.
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Love the photos. They capture much of the range of gardens we saw over the weekend. Would like to see more of them.
You are such a great photographer. The few you show make me want to see so many more and I was there! Great to meet you BTW!!!
Thanks to you both, and great to meet you in person too. I’m a better photographer with my SLR, but I didn’t feel like carrying a heavy camera or tripod on this trip. (My Nikon weighs a ton, and I have a sore neck and shoulders.) The secret is in the RAW conversion in Lightroom, so those pics taken in the rain or the bright sun with my little Lumix don’t look washed out.
It was a pleasure to meet you in Buffalo, and your post is one of the best I’ve read about the event, as you muse about the revitalizing nature of gardening in a city that’s seen hard times. Wonderful pics too.
Beautiful Yvonne! I wish I had known about this a few years ago! I hope you get good vibes fom Hamilton!
Yvonne, I’d love to see a Hamilton Garden Walk/Week! Sounds like just the city to mobilize that way. Considered it for Toronto, too, but I can’t see all the local garden societies working together to do something city-wide. And the thing about Buffalo’s event: everything is free! Wonderful way to bring visitors into the city.
Indeed, Toronto might be a bit big for this sort of event, but Hamilton is the right size. The suburbs of Hamilton, including Dundas and Ancaster, and even neighboring Burlington and locales a bit further afield participate in the Open Garden Week, but I would like to see a garden walk type of project that concentrates on the downtown of the city, which we call the lower city because of our escarpment. I shared my idea with Rob Howard of the Spectator and he is intrigued by the possibilities, especially as the 20th anniversary of Open Gardens Week is coming up in 2012.
Thanks Yvonne for a quick and beautiful view into the Garden Bloggers Buffalo event and garden walks. Wish I had been able to be there – but the garden walks I can do in the future. Buffalo is only 3/4 of an hour from here.
Lene
Great pictures! Have been working on trying to make our flower gardens look like that, but we have a long way to go.
You should have your pictures published in the best gardening magazines, they are that good!
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