Author: Jim Charlier
Tour 70+ exceptional gardens on Thursdays and Fridays in July. Gardens are open for select hours, so you’ll need a Tours of Open Gardens Guide.
You’ll be blown away by the creativity in these gardens. You’ll find a “model train” garden complete with a garden shed that looks like a train ticket station in Hamburg; a tiki hut, a bowling ball totem pole, and a fantastic treehouse in the Elmwood Village; a bar and table top made of pennies in Cheektowaga; a “pub garden” in Tonawanda; a colorful garden of a colorblind gardener in the Cottage District; the Lake Erie shore garden of a home in Lakeview; and the garden of Elizabeth Licata, a founding contributing writer of the leading national garden blog GardenRant.com, in the Allentown Neighborhood. You’ll even see the gardens of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Graycliff along the Lake Erie Shore in Derby.
You’ll find gardens that have appeared in magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens, Horticulture, Fine Gardening, Garden Gate, and This Old House, and dozens more. Most have appeared either in local newspapers, magazines, garden blog posts, and TV.
Gardens are open in Eden, Hamburg, Boston, Orchard Park, Parkside, Amherst, Cheektowaga, Williamsville, Kenmore, Tonawanda and Lancaster on Thursdays. On Fridays, you’ll find Open Gardens in Lockport, Gasport, East Aurora, Holland, Cottage District, Kleinhans neighborhood, South Buffalo, Old First Ward, and Lakeshore.
The 95-page, color guide has garden days and hours, photos and descriptions, maps, suggested routes, estimated timing as well as lists of garden destinations in the area, public parks, green groups, and other garden events happening this summer.
Find out where to get an Open Gardens Guide, for a $5 donation, to Gardens Buffalo Niagara at gardensbuffaloniagara.com.
Gardens Buffalo Niagara’s mission is to create more vibrant and beautiful communities by sharing our gardens with events like Garden Walk Buffalo, America’s largest garden tour; the 20 other regional garden tours; the Buffalo-style Garden Art Sale; Bike Garden Rides during the summer months; and specialty tours, hosted by Explore Buffalo—the East Side Momentum and Buffalo Beyond Flowers Sustainability bus tours.
All photos by Jim Charlier.