Garden Rant

Online becomes in-person (again)

Last year they met in Napa; this year they showed up in my backyard. This group of gardeners has been rendezvousing at garden destinations ever summer for 8 years, 2011 was Buffalo. Most are readers of this and many other garden blogs, but not all of them are bloggers themselves. They are, however, all participants in the GardenWeb perennials forum and call themselves the Idylls—their forum threads are also called Idylls. The reasons they chose Buffalo this year were a combination of Garden Walk and the buzz surrounding last year’s blogger meet-up.

I had no idea that there was another group sort of like our bloggers group, but it’s hardly surprising. Here’s further proof (if any were needed) that digital communications are enhancements rather than replacements for human interactions—these gardeners would probably never have met were it not for GardenWeb.

And speaking of GardenWeb. I had not been on the site for a while. The look and the feel hasn’t changed much since it was purchased by iVillage some years back. On checking Garden Voices, their blog feed, I found that there seemed to be a random selection of posts—the most recent Rant offering was from June. Otherwise, the site looked much as usual—a combo of newbie questions, long conversations, random chatting, and occasional testiness. I used to be on this site every day for quite some time, but now I’m more apt to turn to a book for an answer. And I liked GW better in the pre-iVillage days.

But I’m glad it gave birth to these meet-ups—and that this year was Buffalo.

Flowers do not disappoint

The ability to finally garden has been front page news here in Buffalo and the national news is taking notice of the (delayed) gardening season in articles like this one in the Wall Street Journal: "Cities Invite Tourists to Stop and Smell the Roses". 

It reports on the phenomenon that Garden Walk Buffalo represents in cities across the U.S. Inspired by Buffalo’s, Cleveland is now holding a city-wide garden walk that will include urban farms, vineyards, and orchards—the first one is June 24—and there are many established walks and festivals: lilacs in Rochester; azalea in Wilmington, NC; and lupines in Maine, among countless others.

Last year,  Connecticut geography professor Richard Benfield was in Buffalo researching his upcoming book Garden Tourism. The 16-year-old Buffalo event, which—starting last year—has now grown into a five-week festival including on-going open gardens, a front yard contest, and a speaker/seminar program, now draws 25% of its visitors from out of town. (Keep in mind that the first GWB had 20 gardens and was more like a block party than a tourist event.) Also, the GWB visitors attend an average of 3.39 garden events per year, leaving money behind at each.

The Journal interviewed GWB prez Jim Charlier as well as Benfield, and concluded with the statement I quote in this post title.

Garden Walk visitors will never see my viburnum during this, its finest season. By itself, it’s a fine example of plicatum tomentosum—which is all very well—but the way it embraces this sculpture makes it a real event. It does not disappoint.

Happy Memorial Day!

Idiot politician threatens Buffalo Botanical Gardens, please help

Thanks for nothing, Mr. Collins. It’s like I’ve said all along. Most politicians have an inbred aversion to such things as flowers, paintings, dancers, actors, plays, and literature. Oh, right, and library access.

See, when you run government like a rich guy who got lucky business, you can’t really understand why other people would need any of the things you’ve taken for granted (though clearly ignored) for your entire life.

Garden writers from Idaho, North Carolina, and Wisonsin traveled far to see the BG.

I wonder how many politicians rely on the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens.  Many of you saw this magnificent facility last summer, during Garden Bloggers Buffa10. It needs work—and hopefully will continue to get it—but what it has right now is enough to entrance local families on a regular basis and impress out-of-town visitors whenever they get a chance to see it. It is one of three Lord & Burnham conservatories sited in an Olmsted park.  It is the one place in Western New York where you can escape to the tropics in a twenty minute drive. In February.

That might impress some people, but clearly it is not enough for the leader of our county, who has withheld funding from the facility for the last year and plans the same treatment in 2011.

Look, we all know money is tight. But those of us who pay attention also know that the funds allocated to the Botanical Gardens and every other cultural organization in the area—AND the libraries—would not be enough to make a $2 dent in anyone’s property taxes. Srsly. That's not where the money is.

Fund the gardens. Fund the theaters. Fund the galleries. And for god sakes, fund the libraries. We can’t afford to have another generation growing up as ignorant as YOU, Mr. Collins, clearly are.

If you agree and want to advocate, here's an email, [email protected], and here's a phone number: 716-842-0490. Thanks! 

And thanks to all our Garden Rant readers. For reading.

PS. I would simply add, regarding the BG, that it is a county-owned asset. Which makes it seems all the stranger that the county wants to withhold funding.

 

In no particular order: observations from a garden tourism destination

 

Over 350 gardeners took part in Garden Walk Buffalo this year; as you know, I have been one of them for a decade now. Here’s some of what I noticed this year:

 -The book on garden tourism has yet to be written. I was mistaken when I said British-born geographer Richard Benfield’s (with hydrangeas, above) book was out; it’s listed on websites, but not yet published. The professor, who teaches in Connecticut, visited my garden on Saturday morning and explained to me that he still needed to collect most of the statistics. Using words like “cohorts,” he explained that one couple, visiting for the weekend, staying in a hotel and eating out, represented a $2-3k financial impact, and that 40k visitors doing the same thing could bring in 6 figures worth of tourism revenue.

Benfield became interested in garden tourism when traveling with his wife to Longwood Gardens, and (bored), sitting around near the entrance watching all the visitors come in and out. He explains that our current aging population is the perfect demo for garden visitation, while increased concern about environmental issues, and interest in food-growing and community gardening add to the likelihood of travel for gardening’s sake. Like many, Benfield feels that interest in vegetables often expands to include ornamental gardening. Sure enough, the very first visitors to my property that morning were from Ohio. Over the weekend—with the help of zip code collection sheets—I saw others from Pennsylvania, California, Alaska, Florida, Rhode Island, and other states—and, of course, Canada. I’ll have more from Benfield’s research in another post.

 -It’s always interesting to see which plants get the most attention. For the past few years, Persian Shield (strobilanthes), a shiny purple foliage annual, has been consistently admired. A close second is the henryi species lilium, tall, orange, and wild. Add to those new additions l. tigrinium “Flore Pleno,” which is a double version—long-flowering and very striking. Frequently-asked questions: do I get Japanese beetles (yes, but just a few, easily controlled), do I take the pots in during winter (yes and no), and who made our sculpture and painted our mural. The fact that my viburnum tomentosum is covered with berries for the first time in 8 years (usually there are just a few) caused a number of people to ask about it. And, of course, the hydrangeas. This is the year of the hydrangea, all agreed. I can’t imagine gardening without them.

 

-As for the issues about liability and recompense for gardeners, I admit that they exist, but I personally have never thought about getting compensated for being on the tour. The revenue (from donations) does benefit public beautification, and besides that, it’s fun. I really don’t care about being paid—and in ten years there's never been a claim that I've heard about. So I'm not going to worry. It's been too nice a summer for that.

If we grow it, will they come?

 
Photo by Cheryl Jackson.

Here’s a hastily posed question as I prepare my property for this weekend’s onslaught of Garden Walk visitors. Can garden tourism provide a previously unexamined economic boost to cities (like mine) not ordinarily known as tourism destinations?

According to a book fellow Buffalo blogger Jim Charlier has referenced, the 40 million people who visit gardens every year is a larger number than those who visit Disney World and Disney Land, combined.  The book, Garden Tourism, by Richard Benfield, is apparently one of the few—if not the only—studies of the subject.

It reminds me of research I did about a decade ago about cultural tourism as an alternative to the usual entertainment lures local politicians were liking then (casinos and maybe a new stadium). And it does seem as though visitors to historic and cultural attractions stay longer and leave more money behind than anyone else. I wonder if the same might be true of gardening, though of course, it would have its seasonal ups and downs in most places. Still, in many areas, especially where traditional industry has declined, creative economic boosts need to be explored; for a while, tourism has been one of them.

Have any of you explored this option in your own communities, especially where there are major horticultural attractions, or even the possibility of agritourism,  which is already big in Europe? It’s a possibility on the minds of a few gardeners around here. But I am sure we can’t be the only ones.

It's Good to Get Out of the House

My visit to Buffalo for the garden bloggers' meeting was eye-opening in many ways.  It was really fun to meet all the different personalities in this world, including the extremely generous Kathy Purdy, who brought a bag of narcissus poeticus bulbs to share.  That is the way to make new friends!

It was also valuable, in that it made me a little less provincial as a gardener.  I view my own corner of the universe a little differently now...with, I must admit, some dissatisfaction.  Now that I've seen the big city (and when it comes to gardening, Buffalo is one of THE big cities), I just want more out of life.

Here's what Buffa10 helped me conclude:

1. We really need to step it up here in Saratoga Springs, NY.  I do not think of this as a gardening town.  I think of it as a mow and blow town, full of people rich enough to hire out the yard.  While Oregonian Janet Loughrey has just published a book called Saratoga In Bloom that makes me realize, yes, we do have an aesthetic here, that aesthetic is all about the easy riot of color provided by the same four annuals and not about gardening as personal expression.  Buffalo proves that it's possible to mingle civic pride with personal expression.
2. We really need to step it up in my yard.  I'm a complicated case, in that my main interest is my vegetable garden out in the country. My city yard is mostly about covering the ground so I don't have to mow and don't appall the neighbors, mixed in with a bit of a bulb obsession.  But Buffa10 meeting czar Jim Charlier, in particular, shamed me.  I've been moving my fruit trees from the country, where they are always decimated by deer, to the deer-free city.  But I don't really have room for them.  Jim, however, has a trellis of espaliered fruit trees against his garage.  Beautiful and practical!  Why didn't I think of that? He also grows vegetables in his tiny yard, ringing the small vegetable beds with miniature boxwoods.  Susan Cohan instantly said, "A mini-Villandry," which it is.  Super-sophisticated!  And yet farmer-like at the same time.  Exactly what I aspire to...and fall way short of.
3. Our nurseries stink. Lockwood's Greenhouses, a fantastic Buffalo nursery, fed the garden bloggers a nice lunch and then set us free to shop. I wound up dragging three tender plants home on Amtrak--two begonias and one plectranthus, because they were the chicest things I've seen in years. If these plants were clothes, I would wear them constantly and astonish the world with my sense of style.  My basic feeling about garden retailing is, surprise me.  I am never surprised in my part of the world, not in the sloppy nurseries that ring me in Eastern New York State, nor in the glamorous nurseries that I patronize in Western Vermont.  Lockwood's had lots of things in every department that prompted a shocked, "What is that?"  Plus, they were selling the biggest cast iron urn I've ever seen in my life, which I swear, I would have bought if I'd arrived by Volvo wagon and not train.  Elizabeth Licata said sympathetically, "You should live near good nurseries."  I'm working on it!  I no sooner shook Mr. Lockwood's hand than I suggested rather obnoxiously that Saratoga Springs would be a great market for expansion.

Shop talk

That’s what a bloggers’ meet-up is good for. Not too many people here in Buffalo really want to hear my pet plant peeves—for very long anyway—but during last weekend’s Buffa10 meet-up, I was able to freely vent with such equally outspoken gardeners/garden writers as Susan Cohen, Michele Owens, and many others about interesting topics like:

Hydrangeas that can't make up their minds

I like these to pick a color and stick with it. Two things make me crazy: 1., the sickly bluish-pinky-gray hydrangeas that I see everywhere; and 2., the people who look at my unfashionably strong pink ones and say “Oh, you must add x or y to get that color.”  I don’t add anything to my acidic soil except compost, but I do buy varieties such as “Alpenglow” and “Forever Pink” (not “Forever and Ever”) that are supposed to be the color they stay. The problem is that hydrangea fads dictate that you can never find certain varieties in nurseries from year to year. These days I simply recommend that people buy arborescens or the cool paniculata and quercifolia varieties. You can find macrophyllas with good color via mail order, but the small ones take a long time to mature in a climate like this—or never make it at all.

Architectural context

This came up a lot over the weekend. Susan C. wondered if the aggressive color choices that you see—not only on typical painted lady clapboard houses, but also the painted brick Italianates—helped provide relief from winter grayness. Now, that is an interesting question. I’m not sure. Winter interest here tends to be built around sports, cultural pursuits, and staying inside by the fire. 

No, I think the creativity with the houses comes from the sheer chutzpah of many of the resolute urbanites who live and garden here. We do it because we can and because it’s fun. When warm weather comes, the streets explode with color from flowers and the structures they surround. But without the gardens, I don’t think I’d care about the houses as much.

Speaking of explosions

An on-going discussion is structure and formality in the garden. We have magazines in and out of here all summer long and expect some big names to be featuring Bflo gardens this year. But many of the gardens they gravitate to—all of them are cool, of course—focus more on hardscaping than others. I totally see why this happens—it is more interesting to explain how these structures interact and why they work so well. Plants are not the important thing. I still like lush though, and my favorite gardens are ones like Ellie’s in the Cottage District, where I am surrounded by texture and color. 

It’s all good because it’s fun to talk about. And disagreement only adds spice.

Photos borrowed from fellow attendees Chris C., Gail, and Barbara. Check out their posts and dozens of others on Buffa10.

Instant Make-overs Done Right in Buffalo

The blogosphere is already brimming with posts about Buffalo, and soon we'll be seeing dozens more as 70 of us gardenbloggers unpack our bags and photos and seriously debrief about our whirlwind meet-up there over the past four days.

So where to start?  Well, this exhausted blogger/traveler will simply send readers to this growing list of blog posts about it all, and report on one brand new feature in Buffalo's extravaganza of gardens (all enhanced by what MUST be the greatest concentration of superb historic buildings in the U.S.). It's the competition among landscape designers who volunteered to turned 19 plain front yards into gardens.  Not just any front yards, these are surrounded by historic homes AND a park designed by none other than Frederick Law Olmsted.

Just like so many made-for-TV garden make-overs, they were done quickly, in just three days, and I confess to some moments of cynicism when I saw the instant results and heard that none of the chosen homeowners were actual gardeners.  "Probably a waste of money," I sneered to myself, imagining them quickly succumbing to neglect.  But the brains behind Buffalo's urban garden activism know better, so these homeowners agreed to become gardeners.  They had input into the design of their gardens.  They were a big part of the general hoopla about the make-overs.  And to help turn them into gardeners who can sustain and even enhance the transformations, they're the lucky recipients of free training in all aspects of garden maintenance, including pruning.  Plus discounts at the local garden center.  These people think of everything!

Click here to see all the Before-and-Afters and vote for your choice.  And here's their Design Competition Blog, with great During photos.  Below may be own favorite, though it's hard to choose.

   

We'll never tire of praising Buffaloans for their use of gardens to bring the city back to life.  Cityfolk everywhere can learn from these front-yard make-overs and the famous Garden Walk - coming soon to this lovable, livable city.

Buffa10!
Finally, a big virtual hug and THANK YOU to Elizabeth Licata and Jim Charlier for giving us such an awesome four-day event.  The standing ovation we gave them at Saturday night's dinner was spontaneous, long and loud.

In case you didn’t know

We’ve posted plenty about Garden Walk Buffalo, the free tour of 300-plus urban gardens that takes place every year at the end of July—in fact, we were afraid you were sick of hearing about it (don’t answer that!). Be that as it may, I must take keyboard in hand to at least mention how Garden Walk has grown—in both size and notoriety. 

There has been national press about the event for the last few years. And starting in 2010, GWB is now a 5-week festival. There is an open garden program where private gardens are open weekly throughout the day (so one need not wait for the crowds of Garden Walk to see them), a block-long front garden makeover contest, speakers, seminars, symposia, and, of course, all 19 of Western New York’s garden walks. Our garden bloggers' get-together is also part of the festival, though it is not really a public part. As you know, this was held in Chicago last year, and in Austin the year before.

The festival is happening now—the kick-off was June 17. Yesterday, a day-long seminar featured author Stephanie Cohen, among others. I had a good chat with Stephanie (she's a riot!) and will be posting that interview Tuesday. My garden is one of the open gardens, so it will be interesting to see who wanders in and out on any given Thursday. And I can’t wait to see the makeovers get started—they are all front gardens across the street from one of our Olmsted parks.

I am sure it may be funny for many of you to think of Buffalo as a garden mecca. Go figure. But more than that, this is an example of how a community can take gardening and turn it into a really big deal for everybody—not just us gardeners. 

Pet peeves, plant magnetism, and other tales from a garden tour

 There is so much that is out of our control as gardeners. Plants falter for reasons a team of botanists couldn’t figure out. Hailstorms arrive in July, ruining a crop of tomatoes or a bed of hostas in a few minutes. Plagues of slugs, Japanese beetles, and other destructive creatures arrive regularly.

With the yearly Garden Walk, although there are some questions I’ve learned to expect, I’m always surprised by the minor plant, object or other garden feature that—for inexplicable reasons—captures attention.

Here’s one I always get: “How do you make your hydrangea that color?” The more I hear about new hydrangea cultivars and their problems, the gladder I am that I have stuck with the traditional macrophylla, arborescens, paniculata, and other varieties. No, I patiently explain, I do not have to add anything to the soil to make the flowers pink. That is the “Alpenglow” variety (shown at top); it’s the same color as it was when I bought it years ago.  I already have to site, water, prune, and (if necessary) feed these plants. I don’t think I should be in charge of the color too.

 

And then there is the fascination with this foliage plant I discovered in the White Flower Farms catalog years ago and since have been buying from Select Seeds. Even my husband can recite its botanical name without hesitation (strobilanthes).

 

As for lilies, while most of the expensive Orienpets I have purchased over the years are taken for granted (such as “Grandiose,” above), the wild lily henryi will always steal the show.

 

Every spring I try to pull a fast one on the visitors, adding some new cultivars I am sure will amaze them. But it’s just as likely a humble annual or a shrub I have long taken for granted will steal the show. If we're lucky, I might learn what impresses other journalists about our Garden Walk gardens; both Martha Stewart Living and a prominent gardening magazine were scouting the event this year. Late-breaking: here's what the Martha Stewart Living blog had to say about Garden Walk.