Gardenwalk Buffalo

Flowers, Gardens, Pedestrians Everywhere!
What got Buffalo into The NYTimes, USA Today,
and Traditional Home Magazine this year?
The Buffalo Garden Walk.
Did you know this is the largest Garden Walk in America? What it is is a tour of over 350 spectacular gardens in the city of Buffalo. This walk is always held the last weekend in July.
From the Historical Society (Japanese Gardens) all the way downtown you can see a huge variety of types of gardens. Its a long walk if you plan to see them all, which we did not.
But you can easily pick an area and, using the free map, see the gardens that are open for viewing in a part of town on Sat, and come back Sun to another part of the Walk. Then next year you can do different areas.
The Garden Walk is part of the Larger «Buffalo National Garden Festival», which runs from June 21-​Aug 4, and is in both Erie and Niagara Counties. There are a ton of different events throughout the summer.
If you missed this walk, there are still a few other events, for the next few weeks (I listed them below).
Saturday August 3
Black Rock & Riverside Tour of Gardens, 10 a.m. — 4 p. m
Starry Night Garden Tour, 8 p.m. — 10 p. m
Saturday August 3
Beyond Flowers Tour
website for this year is — this has all the details.

Every year the people who live in the city of Buffalo open the gates to their gardens and invite in the world.
Gardenwalk is held the last weekend of July. It’s quite an amazing event. I’ve gone for the past few years and this year saw the biggest crowds I have yet experienced which was both a good thing (good to see all the interest in this event) and a bad thing (long lines to get into gardens and having to rush through as you were otherwise holding up everybody else).
Gardenwalk literally stretches from one end of the city to the other. Most are centered in the Allentown district which is a neighborhood of houses mostly built between the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Just taking the time to look at the beautiful architecture is worth the price of admission. Except there is no price of admission. The Gardenwalk is free. Even the map of the Gardenwalk is free.
What some people have done is nothing short of fantastic. The one garden that sticks in my mind featured a stone pathway lined with flower beds which opened into a backyard space that featured a dining area with a moss covered table, a small bar, a koi pond with waterfall and huge glass flowers and a water wall that filled the air with the sound of rain. That especially was nice as it created a momentary illusion of coolness on a day that was one of the hottest on record. The garden itself contained various types of ferns, lilies of all colors, and collections of vibrantly colored flowers that reminded me of some firework still-​life.
My favorite neighborhood was Johnson Park. Many of the buildings in this cul-​de-​sac were built before the Civil War. Like the previously described garden, each garden we toured here was like a work of art. It actually makes no sense trying to describe the gardens. You have to experience them first-​hand. I highly recommend making plans for next year’s Gardenwalk. Word of advice — come as early as you can. Once the lunch hour passes, the crowds can get crazy.