Here comes the annual paean to the Buffalo Garden Walk, showcase of unlikely pockets of urban paradise in a city gone mad with gardening. The event is free-form: No prizes, no entry barriers, no commercialization; just open entry and a map to spotlight where people are opening their front, side, and/or back gardens to the public.
In prior years I've noted the gardens' eclecticism and their often dramatic backdrops of tightly packed pastel gables, urban forest, skyscraper or 19th-century ruin. This year, a more fundamental, and more obvious, feature struck me: their density. Buffalo goes in big for profusion. In some of the maybe 30' x 40' back yards to the cottages on Little Summer Street, the narrowest of paths wind through a near-complete overhead canopy. Borders are multi-layered. In mostly small yards, Buffalonians tend to pack every inch -- back, front, and/or side.
The neighbor gables beyond loom like mountain peaks over the rainforest.
A Garden Walk album emphasizing density is here. Last year's ode (and album) here. Brief history in a current news article here. Event website here. Event/organization website here.
In prior years I've noted the gardens' eclecticism and their often dramatic backdrops of tightly packed pastel gables, urban forest, skyscraper or 19th-century ruin. This year, a more fundamental, and more obvious, feature struck me: their density. Buffalo goes in big for profusion. In some of the maybe 30' x 40' back yards to the cottages on Little Summer Street, the narrowest of paths wind through a near-complete overhead canopy. Borders are multi-layered. In mostly small yards, Buffalonians tend to pack every inch -- back, front, and/or side.
The neighbor gables beyond loom like mountain peaks over the rainforest.
A Garden Walk album emphasizing density is here. Last year's ode (and album) here. Brief history in a current news article here. Event website here. Event/organization website here.
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