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…)
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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:
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