Photo by Don Zinteck
Planting an Idea
In 1993, Buffalo gardeners Marvin Lunenfeld and Gail McCarthy attended an urban garden tour in Chicago and decided it was a concept that could work equally well for their own block club back home in Western New York.
They presented the idea to the members of their Norwood/West Utica Neighborhood Association, and by the summer of 1995 a group of volunteers had set up the basic plan for the first Garden Walk Buffalo, held that year on July 15 and 16.
Twenty-nine gardens participated in the first year, most of them in the area enclosed by West Ferry Street, Richmond Avenue, Summer Street, and Elmwood Avenue. The front porch of Lunenfeld and McCarthy’s home at 231 Norwood served as headquarters for the event’s first five years. The weekend-long event was open to anyone in the area who wanted to participate, with no prior judging or entry fee.
No admission was charged for the first Garden Walk and no admission is charged today, but in every other way, the event has grown well beyond its original size and scope. Garden Walk Buffalo has garnered regional and international garden tourism awards, beautified and rejuvenated neighborhoods, increased local home values, and has hosted tens of thousands of visitors from around the U.S. and abroad each year – for an estimated annual $4.5 million economic impact.
The number of gardens participating in the Garden Walk has also increased every year, growing to more than 400 in 2015, making the event the largest of its kind in the United States.
A Growing Footprint
Garden Walk used to extend from the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Delaware Park to downtown Buffalo’s Canalside, and from the Niagara River to Buffalo’s Main Street. In 2019, for its 25th anniversary, the Walk’s footprint was expanded to include Buffalo’s historic Parkside neighborhood in order to build upon its mission to “create more vibrant and beautiful communities by sharing our gardens.”
See a Map of the Current Garden Walk Buffalo Area.
Most of the participating gardens are private ones, but from the beginning, an increasing number of community spaces, corporate gardens, and church gardens have taken part.
The work of organizing and managing the Walk has always been done by volunteers, while financial support comes primarily from contributions from participants and visitors, corporate sponsorships, and merchandise sales. Maps are sent to a rapidly growing mailing list before each year’s Garden Walk in return for a contribution (in any amount—we appreciate everyone’s donations toward beautifying our city!)
Garden Walk Buffalo, Inc. became a 501(c)3 in 2007. Previously, it had used the Elmwood Village Association as a 501(c)3 pass-through.
A New Image for Buffalo
Thanks to the generosity of its many supporters, in 2004 Garden Walk Buffalo began awarding modest grants to block clubs and community groups within its footprint for beautification projects: community gardens, street-side planters, hanging baskets, public, cultural and historic garden restoration, and more.
To date, almost $150,000 has been awarded for more than 200 beautification projects throughout Buffalo since 2004 through the Marvin Lunenfeld Beautification Grants, named for Garden Walk’s founder.
Garden Walk Buffalo is an integral part of summer in Buffalo. The signature event attracts 60-70,000 visitors from around the U.S., Canada, and beyond. Garden Walk Buffalo gardens have been showcased in dozens of magazines and other national media, and this event has helped take the chill out of Buffalo’s Rust Belt image.
The National Garden Festival
In 2010 Ed Healy, VP of Marketing for Buffalo’s tourism organization, Visit Buffalo Niagara, pulled Jim Charlier, then Garden Walk Buffalo president, into a meeting. Healy’s pitch was to create more events that would spread garden tourism throughout Western New York and extend visitors’ summertime hotel stays. At the time, Garden Walk Buffalo did not have the capacity to expand, and the all-volunteer group decided to continue to focus on its signature event.
Ed and Jim then quickly drafted Buffalo News columnist and Channel 4 garden personality, Sally Cunningham to lead the creation of the National Garden Festival, a broad umbrella group overseeing several new and enticing horticultural events in Buffalo and surrounding towns including a garden art sale, themed bus tours, a garden bike tour, a front yard garden competition between landscapers, garden art exhibitions, and speaking and educational events, crowned by the regional Tours of Open Gardens on Thursdays and Fridays (to extend those weekend visits!).
Cunningham’s network of professionals teamed up with Garden Walk’s volunteers to launch these events with unbelievable speed and enthusiasm. The group also began promoting 14 independently run neighborhood garden tours held throughout WNY.
Much support was provided through Visit Buffalo Niagara, the Professional Landscape and Nursery Trades of WNY (PLANT WNY), the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens, the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System, AAA/Horizon Club Tours, the Eighth District Federated Garden Clubs, the WNY Hosta Society, Marianne Kresse, and the Cornell Cooperative Extension Erie Master Gardeners.
A Natural Merger
The National Garden Festival began looking at long-term sustainability by merging with an established organization. In 2014, the time was right for Garden Walk Buffalo, so dozens of Festival and Garden Walk leaders and volunteers formed Gardens Buffalo Niagara (GBN)—arguably the largest garden tourism entity in the U.S.
A Gardening Community Blooms
Under the leadership of Garden Walk and National Garden Festival veterans, GBN has spent the past eight years growing its capacity. With new diversity on its board of directors, it added committees and infrastructure to support new events, and began supporting sustainable, environmentally friendly gardening in WNY through new partnerships with native plant growers and advocates, monarch butterfly conservationists and green landscaping experts.
But there was still more work to do to bring GBN fully into the 21st century. In 2017, the group hired Nikki Ronan of City of Light Consulting, who helped the organization think more strategically. With her help, GBN created new internal processes and streamlined existing ones. Investments were made in technology, like a new website, point-of-sale tablet system, a mobile Open Gardens app, and a fully automated online store. The group’s first part-time administrative coordinator was hired to help support and improve these updates, GBN’s bookkeeping, merchandising, and promotional efforts.
With long-term sustainability of the group being key, fundraising development and a vigorous sponsorship effort were made a priority, as well as establishing the “Living Gardens Legacy Society,” a new charitable bequest program.
In 2018, GBN seized an opportunity to become more inclusive for all city gardeners, welcoming the newly formed East Side Garden Walk into the fold as an official Gardens Buffalo Niagara event. This free, self-guided walk is held annually on the weekend prior to Garden Walk Buffalo, and encourages visitors to explore the stories behind this area’s gracious gardeners, historic neighborhoods and neighborhood revitalization efforts.
Also in 2018, the Board of Directors approved GBN’s first strategic plan.
A Year like No Other
It turned out to be a smart and timely move. In 2019, Garden Walk Buffalo celebrated its 25th “Silver” anniversary with a gala event at the Darwin Martin House and tours of Buffalo’s top privately owned gardens. Then, in the winter of 2020, GBN was forced to cancel both Garden Walk Buffalo and the East Side Garden Walk as the world shut down for the Covid pandemic. Like so many other nonprofit organizations dependent on sponsorships and seasonal events, it pivoted online, launching several new video series and digital maps for self-led garden tours while amping up its social media outreach through a month-long virtual celebration of local gardens and gardeners called Garden Views: Sharing in July. Fortunately Tours of Open Gardens was able to go on, with careful attention to Covid protocols, to mark its 10th anniversary.
New Events Launched
Since a lot of gardening (especially food harvesting) happens in August and wanting to connect with a new gardening community, in 2021 the Gardens Buffalo Niagara leadership launched our first Urban Farm Day to highlight the broad impact that growing local food makes for city residents. With education at its core, this event featured an entire yard turned into mulched gardens, instruction on how to raise chickens, and information on subsistence farming, the environmental benefits of greening vacant lots and the jobs and job training urban farms can offer, among many others. Then in 2022 the first annual Children’s Garden Festival was held as part of the East Side Garden Walk with designated funding from the Erie County Children’s Foundation, the M&T Charitable Foundation, and individual donors.
Looking Ahead
Through these and all our events and partnerships, GBN’s goal is the same as it has been since 1995: to encourage neighborhood beautification and promote community pride. We can’t wait to share many more years of gardening with you.
Whether you are new to Gardens Buffalo Niagara, or a longtime gardener or Garden Walk supporter, thanks for reading! Gardening in Buffalo is as strong as ever, thanks to an incredible community that continues to create neighborhood connections, resilience, peace and beauty through sharing our gardens.
Read more about our Mission, Vision and Core Values