Gardens and Other Good Stuff

 

My bestie and I visited a number of open gardens as a part of the Gardens Buffalo Niagara summer series. Buffalo, NY, is all about Sports, Food, and Gardens. The tours have been going on all month. There are also neighborhood tours, culminating in the huge Buffalo Garden Walk event on the weekend of the 27th. The gardens we visited were in the region we refer to as "The South Towns" -- towns that fall South of the city, and are about a 25 minute drive for us.

The first garden we visited was full of beautiful flowers and a really nice water feature. I spoke with a participating artist who will be painting in a garden next week as part of the "Art in the Garden" segment of this huge program. She paints with coffee! Her technique is like watercolor. She was so interesting and the home owner was a delight too.

The next garden we visited was a wonderful example of what not to do when a tree comes down in you yard. Many homeowners (like yours truly), have the tree cut down to the stump, and then have the stump ground. That makes sense if the roots are near a foundation. But these gardens are on acres with plenty of room. Trees fall here because of storms. This gardener left trunks up, and used them to hold bird houses. Woodpeckers are feeding from them too. It was just so beautiful and inspiring.

All of the gardens we visited had names. The stand-out was Smug Creek Gardens. I encourage you to visit the webpage to learn more about the gardener. The pictures were taken by my friend Jim (who was our personal chauffer and spousal companion), who also paints the colorful posts in one of the pictures. Kathy's environment is creative and beautiful. I have only posted a few images -- the website shows much more. One of the notable things about her house, is that a creek runs through it! Yesterday the water was flowing but not as much as it does at other times. Regardless, the effect is stunning. 

Nothing prepared me for "Whit's End Garden." The house looks like an average suburban abode up front -- but the back is a horticultural rail fan/train spotter's paradise. At first glance it just looked like a fully planted back yard with gorgeous plants and zones. But hidden in the back, is a train hobbyists dream. There are three planting areas with working toy train tracks. The planters and decor are all call-outs to train travel -- like a train case turned planter. This garden was marvelous!

Just about every gardener was devoted to pollinators and butterflies. I saw so many flowers feeding these important garden insects. That so many people are able to do so beautifully, is not only a testament to their talent, but inspiring because of the devotion to helping nature beyond their own yard. Unfortunately, my Android phone isn't the best for taking macro shots. 

Once back home, I made myself a Flashfood lunch. There were two more hotdogs left, but of course no more buns. Since we still had flat bread buns, the delicious solution was to just cut a dog in half and fry it in a pan. I seared the insides of the bread too. Dressed in the normal fashion, my lunch was yummy! Later in the evening, we attended a graduation party, which was also nice.

I worked on a new garden post today. This one is spray painted -- a method I probably won't repeat on wood. But it could work well on PVC. I also went to an estate sale. As luck would have it, I picked up multiples of the type of stake I used to hold up my posts. These were a dollar each! That saves me a decent amount of $$ for my future projects. I have found that the cheapest way to buy these new, is on-line via Walmart. Purchasing brick and mortar (Home Depot, Garden Centers, etc.) is the most expensive way to go. I do not mind that these are used. They can be power washed and will be secured to the back of my posts anyway.

The weather has been so hot, that we put the portable air conditioner we used to use upstairs back in place. We hadn't used it when we replaced our central air conditioner, but it's been so hot lately that we aren't sleeping well. There are no return vents upstairs, so it doesn't cool very well. Yes, it's ugly. But it will make our life more comfortable. We can set the central temp higher, so we won't be paying to cool the downstairs while we are upstairs for 8 hours or more.

Dinner this evening was a coconut curry soup with pork, shrimp, and tofu, plus bits and bobs from the refrigerator that had to be used up. If it went into a salad this week, it was in the soup tonight! The udon noodles were purchased today from the Asian market around the corner. Otherwise, it was our house's version of stone soup. It was actually very tasty!

I am looking forward to finishing my post tomorrow and also need to do laundry. I have a London Broil marinating, so we have that to look forward to as well. I hope everyone is having a great weekend -- I am looking forward to reading about what you are up to!