Buffalo-Style Gardens: Create a Quirky, One-of-a-Kind Private Garden with Eye-Catching Designs

By Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier

Buffalo-Style Gardens is a one-of-a-kind, offbeat garden design book that showcases the wildly inventive gardens and gardeners of Buffalo – and offers readers "the best of the best” ideas to use in their own small-space gardens. With hundreds of design, planting and DIY tips, authors and show-garden experts Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier reveal how fences and furnishings, trees and shrubs, art and whimsy – and the element of surprise – work together to change an ordinary space into something uniquely yours: your own unforgettable Buffalo-style garden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: St. Lynn's Press
• Release date: Feb 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781943366415

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

A New Kind of Garden: livable, relatable, original, free spirited

The first inspirations for this book were some very special residential gardens in Buffalo, New York, home of the largest private-garden tour in North America: Garden Walk Buffalo.

How did it grow to be such a large and talked-about event? It didn’t happen overnight. It took twenty-some years to get that good, that original. During those years a new kind of garden was evolving, with a particular set of characteristics. They were all lush and traditional enough to be called fine gardens but also quirky enough to spark a new term: a Buffalo-style garden.

No matter the size or style, each one had its own kind of welcoming energy and a unique personality that spoke volumes about its creators. No cookie cutter landscapes here. Every garden was built and tended by the gardeners themselves. These are approachable, livable environments that bring a smile and warm the heart.

We (Sally and Jim) are keenly aware that unforgettable gardens occur in other places too. Both of us are gardeners ourselves, and observers of the garden tourism phenomenon. And we’re travelers who have noticed special features of gardens in many places across North America and Europe. We have often talked about the common denominators: What makes some gardens unforgettable? Could we bottle it and sell it, or explain it to others?

We knew we could, and the best way to start was with those extraordinary (mostly) small gardens of Buffalo.

Buffalo gardens have colorful front yards.

You’re about to meet some highly individual gardens and the gardeners who created them. Different approaches, different sensibilities, no two remotely alike. You might ask, if these gardens are all so unique, how can there be a Buffalo style?

Well, that’s just the point: These homeowners weren’t designing by the book. They weren’t professionals – some had never gardened before. But the common design thread connecting the hundreds of gardens of Garden Walk Buffalo is the individual artistic sense of the gardeners, their way of personalizing an outdoor space, their love of the objects and plants they bring to it. For this book we’ll show you how they achieved their memorable gardens – not always intentional, often hit-and-miss-and-try-again. These gardeners seem to intuitively understand certain design and artistic rules. They played with their space, with colors and shapes; they found creative ways to overcome challenges, like a neighbor’s ugly garage wall or a large tree in the wrong place. Most of all, they loved making something just their own that gave them joy. And they demonstrated for the thousands of visitors to their gardens how heart, persistence and go-for-it experimentation can make a garden fabulous even when it’s not exactly by the book.

Garden peeping is fun

Tens of millions of people visit gardens every year. International garden tourism expert Richard Benfield reported that More people visit gardens each year than visit Disney World and Disneyland – combined! In Buffalo, what began as a simple neighborhood tour of a handful of gardens grew and grew until it comprised 400 gardens that are visited by some 70,000 people each year over a two-day summer weekend. For many of those years we have been there too, as participants or tour guides, and also as interested observers of this remarkable event. We hear the comments of visitors as they stroll through the gardens: "I would never have thought to do that, but it works!… Could I try that at home? I want a garden like she has." Sometimes we’ll also hear a voice lamenting: I feel so inadequate. It doesn’t have to be.

Garden touring doesn’t necessarily teach gardening or garden design. Sally should know; she has led tours and organized garden travel far and wide for many years. In response to what she saw as a real need, she developed a talk called Lessons from Private Gardens (what they can teach you) to help her audiences analyze what they saw during garden walks. The idea was to help people to learn to see – not just look – and to show them it’s okay to be copycats, and how to do it. In his blog, ArtofGardening.org, Jim also tries to take some pressure and guilt off regular gardeners by showing creative, personalized garden projects and explaining how almost anyone can succeed with them.

People enjoy getting out and visiting gardens – by the tens of thousands!

Other people’s gardens are teachers

Many remarkable gardens are not necessarily for everyday gardeners, but we can all learn from them and get inspiration, joy and fun from seeing them. Neither the gardeners we’ll introduce, nor your authors, want to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm or set the bar so high that a garden like she has becomes impossible. Every gardener, from the slightly scared beginner to the set-in-his-ways old pro, can get great ideas and techniques from special gardens and apply some of them in the garden back home. In this case, stealing is encouraged! Buffalo gardeners are a generous lot, delighted to share. Part of this book is about figuring out who you are as a gardener, what you like, and what you can and want to do yourself.

The biggest lesson from visiting special home gardens may be this:

Great gardens don’t just happen because of good plants and good gardening methods.

Both factors are important of course (you’ll find the necessary gardening how-to’s in Sally’s Hort Tips throughout this book), but the greatest private gardens became unforgettable (and more so over the years) because the gardeners were self-aware. The gardeners had made conscious decisions about their statements, their individuality, their identities. They were also realistic about what their yard and garden had to offer – its permanent features and site characteristics – and they worked with them. They had figured out their own uniqueness and their gardens’ highest potential, and used these to create the wow.

A book of unforgettable gardens

This book needed to be written. You’ll see why in the pages that follow. You can’t be in the middle of a massive garden tourism happening without wanting to tell the story. You can’t see busload after busload of visitors gasp as they walk into artfully designed, unforgettable little yards, without yearning to show everyone. We even brought a national convention of garden media professionals (GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators) to Buffalo to experience and broadcast the strength of the Buffalo-style phenomenon. These gardens, these gardeners, and their solid gardening how-to needed to be broadcast.

Creative use of hellstrips (area between sidewalk and street)

For this very special book, Sally brings her extensive background in writing, gardening and landscape educating – and much tree hugging. And Jim brings his professional marketing, design and photography skills as well as being a gardener and garden tourism promoter – and a popular host-gardener on Garden Walk Buffalo).

How Buffalo-Style Gardens came to be: meet the authors

Sally

After an early and intense career in government and commerce in New York, I left that world, returned to my Western New York roots and was happily reborn in the horticulture profession – where I’ve thrived for nearly thirty years. My young family acquired thirty acres outside of Buffalo and named it Wonderland Farm (our daughter’s name being Alice). My first garden was 4,000 square feet of vegetables and flowers that buzzed with beneficial insects. But the day came when Alice was grown and my people weren’t eating so many vegetables. I turned my attention to perennials, shrubs and trees. I focused on ecological and ornamental landscaping, and began to help people design and care for their yards. But more than that, I was always teaching, whether on Sunday morning TV for twenty-three years, or in The Buffalo News and Buffalo Spree magazines, which commit significant space to gardening and ecological content. Among professional honors, I was thrilled to receive Buffalo’s Ambassador of the Year award, and to be named Person/Professional of the Year by the New York State Nursery & Landscape Association, by the Professional Landscape and Nursery Trades of WNY, and by the Western New York Land Conservancy.

In a logical progression, I was asked if I would lead some tours to those famous Buffalo gardens I talked so much about. Surely, I would… and tour buses started coming in from Canada, Pennsylvania and parts beyond. With AAA of Western and Central New York I developed Great Garden Travel, to design trips and take people to see and learn about gardens even farther afield in the U.S. and Canada, and to Europe. Garden tourists tend to be lifelong learners, so we looked and learned, and some of us figured out what lessons we could bring home with us.

How did all of this lead to the book you hold in your hands? Well, along with my friend Jim, who happens to be an amazing photographer already immersed (mostly buried) in tens of thousands of photographs of special gardens…it was simply time to share how wonderful private gardens can be.

How Buffalo-Style Gardens came to be: meet the authors

Jim

You’ll see more of my photos and fewer of my words here. If you’re looking for Latin names, plant lists and gardening know-how, I’m not your guy (Sally’s your person!). If you’re looking for inspiration, ideas, and you’d like to see gardens you may never have seen or would like to visit, my photos are for you. I was fortunate enough to have married a flight attendant. We’ve travelled extensively and have photographed private and public gardens throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe, Israel, and more.

I came to Buffalo for college and never left. Not exactly a natural-born gardener (so I thought), I had a conversion experience as an early participant in Garden Walk Buffalo and went on to become president of GWB (2006-2012) as it was growing to be America’s largest private-garden tour. I am also a cofounder of Gardens Buffalo Niagara (GBN), an umbrella organization that comprises about twenty garden walks, bus and bike tours, a garden art sale, and an Open Gardens program throughout July in Buffalo Niagara. About 1,000 gardens can be seen within a two-month period!

Garden tourism is an unusual specialty that has partially motivated this book. I’ve been told that I am the country’s second-leading garden tourism expert – by the country’s leading garden tourism expert, Richard Benfield. (Mostly, he says, because there is no one else!) As a result, I give talks about garden tourism and I consult with gardening organizations from around the U.S. and Canada to launch and promote their own garden tourism events. I have presented twice at the International Garden Tourism Network’s North American Conference, and in California for America in Bloom’s Annual Conference and Awards event.

I spent my formative years working in advertising agencies, and have had my own advertising design/marketing business since 2000 (JCharlier Communication Design). This time in advertising has helped in the promotion of Buffalo’s gardens and outreach. I like to think I’ve used these powers for good, and I won’t stop until Buffalo is recognized nationally as one of the great gardening destinations. This book is part of that campaign.

Now let’s look in on some of these Buffalo-style gardens and see how their owners did it. In these pages you’ll find lots of inspiration and practical tips for tapping into your inner Buffalo. May it roam free as you create your own uniquely wonderful garden!

P.S.: If you haven’t noticed by now, this is not going to be just another garden design book.

Most of the gardens you’ll meet in this book are from Buffalo and these surrounding Western New York towns. Some of the towns have names that are shared with other states, so if we talk about a garden in Boston or Amherst or Lockport or Lancaster, you’ll know it’s the one from around here and not the one in Massachusetts, Illinois or Pennsylvania…or the Pendleton that’s in ten other states as well. And when a caption for a garden photo gives only a town’s name but not the state, you’ll know it’s from here.

For a listing of the many garden walks and tours in the Buffalo Niagara area, and contact information, please see page 220.

PART ONE

Buffalo-Style Gardens:

Where Creativity Meets Design

This book is about sharing some quirky, fabulous gardens, mostly from the Buffalo Niagara region. We’ll start with what Buffalo-style is, and how some special gardeners got there in their individual paths of discovery… and then look at some rules of the road – design principles – that underly these success stories.

Chapter One: Buffalo’s Gardens – a Living Laboratory

Chapter Two: Great Little Gardens and How They Grew

(and some bigger ones that grew too)

Chapter Three: Good Garden Design

(in the beginning…)

one

BUFFALO’S GARDENS

A Living Laboratory

Through the ages, gardening methods and designs have changed with the tastes and needs of their times. So what is happening today? We – Sally and Jim – have observed and participated in the world of gardening for many years, tuned into the trends and important cultural shifts. And we’ve come to see that Buffalo-area gardeners have unintentionally created a garden design laboratory for our 21st century sensibilities and lifestyle.

This remarkable outdoor laboratory demonstrates that we need not be tied to the old ways of a demanding expanse of green lawn, raised beds, with the flowers and veggies out back, and the (often) hopeless-looking hellstrips at the curb. We can bring personal art pieces to the garden, even if they’re repurposed and definitely unconventional. We’re not marching to just one drummer anymore. But we’re not into chaos either, and we have busy lives. So this real-life laboratory is showing us smart, creative shortcuts, design solutions and ways of living the good life in all kinds of outdoor spaces.

Garden design choices: Extending the rules

If there were a simple formula for designing a magazine-worthy garden, life would be simple – for a gardener at least. Landscape architects and professional designers would go out of business. Horticulture courses and garden design books would become extinct. We would just pass out charts that instruct: (a) Choose these plants, (b) Put them together this way, and (c) Open the garden to show it off. It doesn’t work like that, however.

What does work? What are the Buffalo gardeners doing that’s causing all the admiring talk? We know there’s lots of creativity, but what makes them so special? After a lot of conversation, and overhearing thousands of visitors, we have concluded it is not one thing, but several – let’s call them qualities – that characterize the most impactful gardens.

Here are some of the ways that these gardens capture our imaginations. Just a sampler for now. We’ll dive deeper in the chapters that follow.

Surprises and Humor

We remember best when something unexpected pops up. Surprises stick in our brains, including images of memorable gardens. Unexpected plants in unconventional places can be one kind of surprise. Or whimsical choices of furniture, art, collections, or your style in presenting them. Sometimes it’s even your story or the garden’s story that captures attention. Here are three gardens that surprise people for entirely different reasons:

A Garden with a Story with a Twist

The garden of Annabelle Irey and Jim Locke

This garden, commonly called Mary’s Garden, has become an icon of Garden Walk Buffalo and has been photographed for several national magazines. Why? In part it’s the hardscape – the path and the archway. If you cover one eye to see the garden without the sign and the archway, what remains is an exuberant and colorful flower garden. Beautiful, yes, but not necessarily unforgettable. Sometimes the extra something is a simple archway or sign.

This garden has something else that’s even more unusual – a story that surprises. It starts with the sign, Mary’s Garden, which creates the expectations that the lady of the house is the inspiration for this garden or perhaps Mary is the gardener herself. But the story emerges: Visitors look for Mary and find out from the owners that Mary was actually Jim’s former wife, who is now deceased, for whom the garden was created during her extended illness. Annabelle, who tells you the story, is Jim’s second wife and partner in gardening. And…the touching twist: She agreed that it should continue to be called Mary’s Garden, a lovely homage from one gardener