Tillsonburg Horticultural Society takes in Buffalo Garden Festival 0

IT'S STILL JUST DIRT - PENNY ESSELTINE

At the end of July, Tillsonburg Horticultural Society members crossed the Canada-U.S. border for an international bus tour taking in the Buffalo National Garden Festival and Garden Walk Buffalo, which included 370 gardens located in clusters within a three mile radius in the city.

Our guide Sally Cunningham said, We are real proud of whats happened in this region. Twenty years ago 16 neighbours said lets do a garden tour and now there are 370 gardens in Buffalo that are now seen by as many as 55,000 people in just one weekend of Garden Walk Buffalo.

Our first Festival stop was Marcia Scullys Hidden Gardens of Eden, in Eden, New York. Sally said this was one of the most respected gardens in the region. Marcia likes to under grow plants under plants, and many, many pots. Marcia said it takes her three hours each day just to water the pots. She has hypertufa (hand-made) pots as well as old fashioned tin washtubs, filled with hosta pots, and even birdbaths pot filled with as many as 12 different kinds of succulents.

For the hardier plants Marcia pulls pots in close to the house in the fall and tips them on their side so the water does not accumulate too much. For the more tender plants in her garden she digs them up and takes them, bare-rooted in pans, all the way to her Florida winter home where she plants them in the garden there.

Tillsonburg Horticultural Society tour organizer Christine Nagy said that in the 15 years shes been touring gardens this is the best she has seen.

The imagination and creativity is amazing, said Nagy.

Smug Creek Gardens in Hamburg, New York was next. Its home to King of the Hosta World Mike and Day Lily Queen Kathy. Mike told us they have four gardens, all in virgin woodland, including four terraces up the hill with plants like day lilies, hydrangea and rudbeckia, a garden of small hostas (up to 12 inches tall) in rockery in the shade, a garden in a bog with raised beds to keep the roots out of the water, and a hosta glen. The deck too is a garden with more than 100 plants in pots. Thirteen acres in total and everything is labelled.

Thursday morning started in a modest income area of central Buffalo where Garden Walk Buffalo began. On 16th Street, Joe and Scotts amazing place has every kind of coleus known to man. One hundred and fifty pots planted with annuals each year.

Its always evolving, something different every year, mostly coleus," said Joe. "I sprinkle Miracle Grow in the hole before I plant.

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Tillsonburg Horticultural Society takes in Buffalo Garden Festival 0