Saturday, July 10, 2010

Rainy Day Buffa10 - Day 2

The garden energy in Buffalo is quite amazing. I have never seen a city so energized by the beauty of flowers.


Yesterday we visited the gardens of Summer Street, where several homeowners were either working in their yard (as we gardeners do) and I’m sure preparing for the upcoming GardenWalk or enjoying conversing with us about their garden and their city.

Unfortunately, I can’t identify them by name or address, but I can say they were enthusiastic about their city, their garden, and our visit. I talked to one homeowner about his rain barrel. He has a very similar set up as I am planning on testing on my gazebo. He confirmed what I had heard about using a soaker hose…not enough pressure is the problem. So, as a solution he is going to poke a few holes in the soaker hose so it becomes more of a drip system than a soaker system. I have heard this mentioned as a solution before, I hope it works out for him. Another homeowner, Mr. Mimosa we’ll call him, recounted a GardenWalk from the past when the skies suddenly opened up and began soaking the GardenWalk attendees. He invited everyone who was stranded in his yard into his house and what ensued was lively conversation and a mini-party complete with mimosas. How great is that?!

From Summer Street we headed to the Japanese Gardens which were a gift from Buffalo’s sister city, Kanazawa, Japan. They have big plans for these gardens; I expect they will be even more majestic in a year’s time.

Next on the agenda was Urban Roots. Unfortunately, by this time of day, we were all getting weary of the rain and the rain was starting to come down a little harder than before so I don’t have the whole story of Urban Roots. What I do know is that they are a community based Garden Center, apparently the first garden center co-op in the country. They had some wonderful plants and the Wooly Pocket, which is something I've seen on Jamie Drurie's show, one day I'll try it out. From there, we headed to Bird Ave.Gardens, you can check them out on Facebook. They have a magnificent backyard and hospitality to rival the most gentile southerner. Although, the rain was still coming down, we all enjoyed hanging out in their cool bar area and the makeshift pavilion while enjoying the awesome views around the yard.

Thanks again to all those who are making Buffa10 such a wonderful experience.

6 comments:

  1. Wow - I don't quite know what I pictured when I thought of Buffalo, but it was nothing like you have showed us in your blog. I'm impressed. It looks a beautiful city, and very welcoming. I'm glad you're blogging about it and having a good time.

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  2. Thanks Jane! I completely agree with you, I had no idea there was so much gardening going on there. The homeowners I talked to were very excited that we were spreading good news about their city. They all think the only thing the rest of the country knows about them is they get massive amounts of snow and they invented Buffalo Wings. And they are probably right.

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  3. I just visited your garden blog by chance and was delighted to find the first posting I had seen of the Buffalo trip. Wonderful. Their garden walk idea is wonderful and it looks to me as though y'all are having a great time.

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  4. It was lovely to meet you. I'm still trying to get my head on straight after a weekend of such beauty and fellowship. I hope you're encouraged to continue on with blogging.

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  5. Hey, it was great to meet you, and we only had to travel all the way to New York state to do so, though we're both Texans. Funny! Hope to see you again closer to home sometime.

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  6. You've captured the garden pond beautifully~It was a lovely weekend despite the rain on Friday and meeting new bloggers was a wonderful treat~gail

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