A garden at the end of summer

There was considerable pressure on the GWI garden during July. Actually, it started in late June when fellow Ranter and acclaimed author Amy Stewart snuck in with a camera crew and shot a video (mainly an interview with Amy), while I was out of town. It is a major production about Buffalo gardens and our love of gardens that the local visitor’s bureau is working on. When it’s finished, I’ll post it.

Then, July 8-11, 70 garden bloggers/writers/vendors were in town, and the GWI property again got a workout, on a very hot Thursday. I am assured by most of the attendees that they could not really see the garden for the crowd and the excitement of seeing each other—which is as it should be.


Finally, July 24-27, about 1,000 people came through as part of Garden Walk Buffalo. That’s a smaller number than usual, because the headquarters location changed, but 1k was plenty for me. It was a lovely weekend. I should mention that throughout July, my garden was one of a few dozen Open Gardens. Every Thursday I tried to remember to leave the gate open so that those few aware of the program could visit. We’ll try it again next year with better PR.


Phew! Now the garden is finally quiet. The lilies are over (except the speciosum), the roses are taking a break, but I do have plenty of annuals, tropicals and yellow/orange perennials. The heliopsis is doing wonderfully, as is the rudbeckia laciniata “Gold Glow” (at top), which might very well be my favorite rudbeckia ever. There isn’t the riot of scent that I had when the lilies and jasmine were dominating, but I do still have some fragrance from the heliotrope (especially the white), the old-fashioned petunias, the David’s Lavender phlox and a few other plants. And there are some plants still to bloom.

Maybe the garden isn’t so much quiet as different.