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National Garden Festival Runs June 24 to July 31

Buffalo’s 2nd annual festival features 14 garden walks, workshops, national speakers, a Front Yard Garden Competition and more

BUFFALO, NY, June 2, 2011-- The second annual National Garden Festival will take place from June 24 to July 31 in Buffalo, N.Y. The festival made an impressive debut in 2010, attracting more than 67,000 attendees.

The five-week-long festival offers something for anyone with (or without) a green thumb:

• Appearances by nationally-recognized garden speakers, including Kerry Ann Mendez, author of “The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Top Ten Lists” and host of Horticulture Magazine's webinar series. Mendez will appear at the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens on June 24, and she will be the keynote speaker for Perennial Day at Lockwood’s Greenhouses in nearby Hamburg, N.Y. on June 25.
• 14 garden walks and tours throughout the Buffalo Niagara region, totaling nearly 1000 private gardens. The festival culminates in Garden Walk Buffalo – the largest free garden walk in the country – on July 30 and 31. Garden Walk Buffalo has been featured in more than thirty national publications.
• Front Yard Garden Competition: 14 front yards on South Buffalo’s Newman Place, facing the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Cazenovia Park, will receive makeovers by professional landscapers, who will donate their time and materials and compete for public recognition. Construction of the gardens will take place from July 11 to 16 and the public will be able to vote for their favorite yards from July 17 to 22. More than 1000 people voted during the inaugural competition in 2010. This event, which is the first of its kind in the United States, is coordinated by the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, the Western New York State Nursery & Landscape Association, and the New York State Certified Nursery and Landscape Professionals.
• Open Gardens: on Thursdays and Fridays throughout the festival, more than 60 private gardens throughout the Buffalo Niagara region will be open to visitors.
• A series of Friday afternoon luxury motorcoach tours, operated by AAA Western and Central New York’s Horizon Club Tours. Expert gardeners will provide behind-the-scenes tours of some of Buffalo’s finest gardens, from secluded private yards to the Olmsted Parks. The tours each include a sit-down lunch. Dates are as follows:
  o June 24: Forest Lawn Cemetery, Botanical Gardens & Opening Event for the National Garden Festival
  o July 1: Buffalo’s Celebrated Olmsted Parks
  o July 8: Southtowns Bouquet (private gardens in the nearby towns of Hamburg, Boston and Eden)
  o July 15: Buffalo’s Famous Private Gardens
  o July 29: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House, Private Gardens of Historic Parkside & Amherst
• Special events in Buffalo’s Frederick Law Olmsted-designed parks, including a performance by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra on July 16 in Cazenovia Park.
• Day-long seminars at local garden centers, including Lockwood's Greenhouses in Hamburg (“Perennials Day,” June 25, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.), Menne’s Nursery in Amherst (“Fairy Day,” June 25, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and Urban Roots in Buffalo (“An Afternoon of Urban Gardening,” July 23, noon to 3 p.m.).

“Buffalo continues to build on its reputation as one of America’s best gardening cities,” said National Garden Festival Director Sally Cunningham. “The National Garden Festival is a five-week-long garden party that brings walks, tours, speakers, open gardens, special events and a neighborhood-transforming garden competition together under one great green umbrella.”

The National Garden Festival is gaining significant attention across the country, thanks to a story about the Front Yard Garden Competition in the early spring issue of Country Gardens magazine and a May 29 Associated Press story about garden tourism.

Additional information is available at www.nationalgardenfestival.com.

The National Garden Festival is a collaboration between the garden and landscape organizations of the Buffalo Niagara region. The festival is presented by Visit Buffalo Niagara, District 8 Federated Garden Clubs of New York State, the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens, the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Garden Walk Buffalo, the Western New York State Nursery & Landscape Association, the New York State Certified Nursery and Landscape Professionals, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library and Forest Lawn Cemetery. Funding is provided by the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation, the Western New York Foundation and the Buffalo Green Fund. Additional support has been provided by the Western New York Hosta Society, the Buffalo Area Daylily Society, the Peace Garden Project, Master Gardeners of Cornell Cooperative Extension, Buffalo in Bloom, the Iris Society of Western New York and Elizabeth Licata. LocalEdge is a media sponsor.