Amaryllis Sydney

Did you know that the beautiful amaryllis you have been enjoying indoors this winter can rebloom next year and the year after that, too?

“I’ve been using the same bulbs through the years,” said Doug O’Reilly, horticulturist and head gardener at the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens. He has to make sure he has amaryllis flowers– and lots of them– blooming every year for the annual Amaryllis and Cymbidium Exhibit.

The exhibit continues through Feb. 20 at the Botanical Gardens, 2655 South Park Ave., Buffalo. About 15 or 20 different varieties are being shown, and he has a total of 500 or 600 specimens on exhibit at one time or another during the show.  As one plant loses its flower, O’Reilly must have another specimen waiting in the wings to replace it.

As you can see from these photos that I took at the exhibit, the flowers can be spectacular even when they have been forced to blossom indoors during the winter in previous years.

Here’s how you can keep your own amaryllis reblooming year after year.

Amaryllis 'Ferrari'

At this time of year, when your plant has lost its bloom, keep watering it, O’Reilly said.

In the summer, put the pot outside and keep watering it, he said. (I learned the hard way that you can’t skip this step. The plant has to work during the summer to store nutrients to recharge the bulb.)

Bonus tip: I have acquired several bulbs over the years and have put them all into one big pot. A big pot tends to retain moisture better so I don’t have to water as often as I would have to if I had them in small, individual pots during the summer.

At the end of August or beginning of of September, bring the pot inside. O’Reilly brings his amaryllis into an unheated garage. There he lets them dry out completely to prepare them for the next step.

Amaryllis 'Apple Blossom'

Next he puts the bulbs, still in pots, into a cooler at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. He feels that putting the bulbs into the cooler helps them develop flowers faster.

He let the pots and soil dry out first because if they were damp when they were placed into the cooler, the bulbs would rot, he explained.

Since I have a big pot that’s too big for my refrigerator, I just set the pot in the basement where it’s a bit cooler than the rest of the house, and that works well enough for me. It’s important to O’Reilly that his plants develop flowers fast so that they are ready in time for the amaryllis exhibit. When it comes to my own plants, it doesn’t matter when they bloom. As long as I get some flowers sometime during the winter, I’m happy.

White double flowering amaryllis

Now comes the key step: When the bulbs are in the cooler or basement, don’t water them. The bulbs will go dormant, O’Reilly explained.

He leaves his plants in the cooler for about two months, taking them out in the middle of November. I leave mine in the basement until I notice new leaves starting to grow. Then I bring them upstairs and place them in a sunny window.

At this point, start watering your amaryllis again. O’Reilly said he fertilizes the plants every other week.

O’Reilly notes that he doesn’t divide his bulbs every year, so he gets offshoots and multiple flower stems growing in one pot, as you can see with the ‘Apple Blossom’. That’s a lovely effect.

Photos by Connie Oswald Stofko

Cactus. Photo by Connie Oswald Stofko.

Live music is a new addition to the popular Night Lights event at the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, 2655 South Park Ave., Buffalo, which starts tomorrow.

Also new this year, Buffalo artist Zach Boehler will install sculptures inside the Botanical Gardens to enhance the visitors’ experience.

As visitors walk through the Botanical Gardens during Night Lights, they encounter creative lighting displays and soundscapes that inspire imaginations and delight the senses. Last year’s event was a huge success, and 2012 will bring new  different lighting arrangements.

The event will be held Wednesdays through Saturday, Feb. 1-4, 8-11 and 15-18. Times are 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and 6 to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

The musicians will play at 8 p.m.  on Fridays.  Scheduled bands are:

Lazlo Hollyfeld on Feb. 3 – This all-instrumental group will play their original compositions created from a blend of electronic, percussion and guitars. Lazlo Hollyfeld has toured the country and have been local favorites for over a decade.

John & Mary on Feb. 10 – Hailing from the lineage of the alternative rockers 10,000 Maniacs, John & Mary will bring their original folk rock tunes. The duo has released four albums during their 20-year career. Mary Ramsey is the lead singer in 10,000 Maniacs. John Lombardo was a former founding member of the band.

Waterfall. Photo by Connie Oswald Stofko.

GAHU Drum Ensemble on Feb. 17 – Calling the Chautauqua region their home, the GAHU Drum Ensemble will perform traditional rhythmic percussion and vocals. Led by TR McKotch and Rhonda Harp, the ensemble plays and teaches throughout the Southern Tier. Who knows, maybe they will bring a few extra drums and you can join in the action.

The lighting designers are SitlerHQ, LLC and Volt Vision, Inc. who own and operate the successful eco-tourism attraction NIGHT LIGHTS at The Heron in Chautauqua County. NIGHT LIGHTS at The Heron is a one-mile walk in the woods at night through a lighted trail and is considered to be one of North America’s most unique tourism attractions.

Admission is $10 for adults; $8 for Botanical Gardens members, seniors & students; $5 for children ages 3-12, and free for children under 3. Guest passes and coupons are not valid during Night Lights. Tickets can be purchased online at www.buffalogardens.com or at the door.

The event is sponsored by Buffalo Spree, Star 102.5, Local Edge, Dundee Ale & Lager and Seagram’s Escapes.

By attending the party, you’re  supporting the National Garden Festival and helping to  make the Buffalo-Niagara region a garden destination.

You can also enjoy heavy hors d’oeuvres by Lucarelli’s, along with beer and wine.

Those who attend the party will be among the first to hear updates on the National Garden Festival, such as what neighborhood will participate in this year’s Front Yard Contest as well as details on this year’s weekend kickoff event.

While you’re enjoying the party, be sure to see what else the Botanical Gardens has to offer.

You can view the spectacular Night Lights display, where ever-changing lights splash the botanical displays and a music soundtrack adds to the experience. Also taking place the night of the party are the Amaryllis and Cymbidium display as well as a wonderful photo exhibit in the Arcangel Gallery.

The cost for the party is $50 per person or $75 per couple. Reservations are required by Tuesday, Feb. 7.

The National Garden Festival is a five-week-long garden party. It includes 14 garden walks, including America’s largest, Garden Walk Buffalo. It also includes bus tours, weekday Open Gardens, speakers, workshops and a Front Yard Garden Competition. This festival of 1,000 gardens has something for everyone.

Butterwort will be the topic of the Feb. 1 meeting of the Western New York Carnivorous Plant Club. Photo from Ryan McGhee.

Carnivorous plants are fascinating because they do something so unusual: They eat animals.

You can grow carnivorous plants in your Buffalo-area home if you pay attention to their needs in three areas: water, minerals and food, said Kenny Coogan of Kenmore. Coogan, along with Ryan McGhee, co-founded the Western New York Carnivorous Plant Club.

The club will meet from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1 at Menne Nursery, 3100 Niagara Falls Blvd., Amherst. The topic will be the butterwort, which is known for its flowers and looks like a wide-leafed succulent.

The butterwort is a passive predator, Coogan noted. The whole surface of its leaves are sticky. Insects get stuck to the leaves and get digested. What remains of the insect gets carried off by rain or wind.

Mexican butterwort with flower. Photo from Ryan McGhee.

You can buy carnivorous plants early in the spring to mid-summer at garden centers such as Lockwood’s Greenhouses, 4484 Clark St., Hamburg.

Also, club members often trade plants or offer seeds or young plants to people who are getting started, Coogan said.

Here are three big tips to get you started with carnivorous plants:

Water

Carnivorous plants generally come from bog areas and tropical rain forests, so you must make sure you keep them wet.

“They have to be wet all the time,” Coogan said. “They have to be sitting in water.”

Place your carnivorous plant in a plastic container, then place the plastic container in a bowl  or in the lid of a starter plant kit.

Cape sundew (Drosera capensis) in double plastic pot. Photo from Ryan McGhee.

For a nicer look, place the plastic container in a glazed ceramic container that doesn’t have holes. Don’t use a terra cotta container because the minerals from the pot might leach into the water and harm the plant.

Use rain water or distilled water. This is important because you must help the carnivorous plant maintain the proper mineral balance. And that brings us to our second tip.

Minerals

Carnivorous plants get all the minerals they need from their prey, Coogan said.

“Limestone and salts are definitely detrimental,” he said.

Introducing extra minerals by using tap water or terra cotta pots could cause an overdose of minerals and harm the plant.

Venus fly trap capturing a fly. Photo from Ryan McGhee.

You have to start with a mineral-free soil. The usual potting mixture for carnivorous plants is half sphagnum moss and half children’s play sand.

Food

“The trick to feeding carnivorous plants is not to feed them,” Coogan said. “They will catch everything they need.”

Your house might not be full of insects this time of year, but don’t worry. Carnivorous plants slow down and don’t need to eat from November through April.

It’s tempting to try to feed a big lump of hamburger to your carnivorous plants, but Coogan said this is a bad idea for several reasons:

Nepenthes catching its own meal of ants. Photo from Ryan McGhee.

• These plants have adapted to eat small bugs. If you feed them a large lump of food, you may be giving them too many nutrients too fast.
• When a plant catches live prey, the prey struggles. The more the prey struggles, the more digestive enzymes the plant produces. If you feed the plant, you are bypassing this necessary step in the digestive process.
• The Venus flytrap catches its food by closing a lobe shut and trapping its prey. However, each lobe can open and close only three times during the life of the plant. If you introduce a lump of food that is too big for it to digest, or if you tap the lobe with a pencil to see it snap shut, you are wasting those precious opportunities for the plant to nourish itself.

“You don’t want to mess around,” Coogan said.

If it’s very important to you to feed  your carnivorous plant, you could keep your plant in a terrarium, catch live insects and release the insects into the terrarium, Coogan said.

Hardy female holly shrub. Photo by Lockwood's Greenhouses.

Here’s an over-the-top decorating idea for the holidays: Make your yard feel more Christmasy by planting holly bushes in the Buffalo area right now!

“It’s been such a mild December,” said Teresa Buchanan, general manager of Lockwood’s Greenhouses, 4484 Clark St., Hamburg.  “That’s the only reason you can get away with planting holly now. Normally, it would be too cold by now.”

Close-up of hardy holly. Photo by Lockwood's in Hamburg, NY.

This is the time of year when holly bushes look their most splendid, adorned with their red berries, often blanketed in snow. People admire them in other gardeners’ yards and wish they had planned better and planted them in the spring or fall.

This year you can actually plant them during the Christmas season! You can plant green holly bushes until the ground is frozen, and  most of us still don’t have frozen soil.

It’s not the cold that will kill a new plant, Buchanan explained, but a quick change in temperature that kills it. If you plant an unfrozen specimen in unfrozen ground, it will be fine because the root ball will be insulated by the surrounding soil. The root ball will slowly freeze as the soil around it changes temperature.

With holly, it’s important to choose a site that will be protected from west winds, she said. Like other broadleaf evergreens, holly can be burned or dried out by strong winds. The leaves will turn brown.

Variegated holly, which isn't hardy in our area. Photo from Lockwood's Greenhouses.

To protect them the first year, you could wrap your holly bushes, but the most important thing is to choose that permanent location well, Buchanan emphasized.

As you would for any new plants, keep your bushes well watered for the first six weeks.

You could also keep holly bushes in an unheated garage or other area protected from wind until you can plant them in the spring.

If you want berries, you need to buy a male and a female bush, she pointed out. The male bush must be planted within 50 feet of the female bushes.

Many people buy several female bushes and one male. The names of the varieties sometimes indicate which sex you are buying. For example, there are Blue Prince and Blue Princess holly bushes.

There is also a variety called Honeymooners, with a male and female specimen planted in the same pot.

At this time of year, you can also buy variegated holly, but that’s not hardy in our area, she said.

You can use variegated holly for decorating inside. Don’t use it for a wreath that you want to hang outside; the variegated holly will freeze and turn black.

Variegated holly in arrangement. Photo by Lockwood's.

The variegated holly is more perishable than the other winter greens, so Lockwood’s keeps it in a florist cooler. It will last only a few days out of water, but in an arrangement with nice wet oasis, it will last a week or two, Buchanan estimates. If you’re using it in an arrangement with Christmas evergreens and fresh flowers, the variegated holly will last longer than the cut flowers, but not as long as the greens.

Tip: Re-cutting the stems on the variegated holly helps keep it fresh, Buchanan said.

Photo by Connie Oswald Stofko.

A few years ago I realized gardening had gone beyond a hobby for me and become a passion.

As I jotted an appointment onto my calendar, I realized that it was already the middle of December. I got a giddy feeling in my stomach and thought, “It’s almost time for seed packets to show up in stores!”

That’s when I knew I was a gardener.

I may not be skilled in gardening. Heaven knows I didn’t water my garden nearly enough during our hot, dry summer this year.

I don’t know the Latin names of many plants, and sometimes I don’t even know the common name. For me it’s enough to have a plant labelled, “yellow flowers from Dad.”

I tried to plant butterfly bushes three different times with no success, making different mistakes each time. (I planted another butterfly bush this fall. Let’s hope this is a success and not another learning experience.)

Despite all that, I love gardening. I love the planning and the planting and even the weeding.

Photo by Connie Oswald Stofko.

Pulling weeds is mindless. It doesn’t involve words. That’s a wonderful break for me since I spend most of my day writing for Buffalo-NiagaraGardening.com or for my freelance clients.

Weeding also provides a break from sitting at the computer. It gives me a chance to be outside and bend and stretch in the sunshine.

So often we rush through the tasks and chores in our lives. We just want to get them over with. We judge our days by the outcomes. It was a good day only if everyone on your committee got back to you so you could submit the final report and you checked off every item on your list of errands.

When I’m gardening, I’m happy while I’m doing the work, not just getting it done. I can slow down and be in the moment.

If my newest butterfly bush doesn’t grow, I will be disappointed, of course. But there will be other plants to give me enjoyment. My dependable black-eyed Susans will certainly bloom. My hostas will spread so much I’ll have to give some away.

And the weeds will be there, too, beckoning me to take a break and enjoy the sunshine.

What does gardening mean to you? What made you realize you were a full-fledged gardener? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Ken-Sheriton Garden Club

What did Christmas decorations look like in Buffalo circa 1901?

You can get  a glimpse when you tour the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, 641 Delaware Ave., between North and Allen Streets, Buffalo. Garden clubs from the Eighth District Federated Garden Clubs of New York State have decorated the historical site for the holidays.

Last week, we told you that the garden clubs were challenged to use a color scheme of silver, burgundy and pink.

At the same time, they aimed to keep true to the styles that were in vogue at the turn of the last century, when Theodore Roosevelt took the presidential oath of office at the site. On 1901, the mansion was the home of Ansley Wilcox, a friend of Roosevelt.

In general, decorating in the Victorian era was lavish, abundant and profuse. The liberal use of decorative items is demonstrated in the close-up at left of a Christmas tree decorated by the Ken-Sheriton Garden Club.

Buffalo newspapers of the Victorian period the time carried detailed accounts of the holiday parties and debutante balls thrown by wealthy Buffalo residents at Christmastime.

Natural materials– not just evergreens, but fresh flowers, too– were used in decorating, said Lenora M. Henson, curator at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site.

Lancaster Garden Club

“The people whose parties made the papers were Buffalo’s elite, so they must have had access to greenhouses,” she said.

To simulate the style for an exhibit that lasts weeks rather than just a single night, the garden clubs generally use dried flowers in their creations. At right, an ornate mirror reflects the dried hydrangea arrangement and door wreaths made by the Lancaster Garden Club.

At the turn of the century, Christmas decorations at high society parties included  flowers we associate more strongly with Easter than with Christmas, such as hyacinths and lilies.

Plant material used during that period included:

• Pine
• Ferns
• Stevia (an herb used today for sweetening)
• Holly
• Smilax (a vine that can get red berries)
• Poinsettia
• Palms
• Narcissus
• Roses
• Begonias
• Mistletoe
• Mountain laurel
• Orchids
• Lilies
• Asparagus vines
• Hyacinths

Roses were mentioned often. Below left, the Smallwood Garden Club used pink roses in its decorations for the dining room. In a lovely coincidence, the painting of Frances Wilcox, daughter of Ansley and Mary Grace Wilcox,  shows her also holding a pink rose.

Smallwood Garden Club

On the table is a silver epergne (an ornamental centerpiece designed to hold flowers). It was purchased in memory of Betty Nosbisch, who was the motivating force that developed the garden clubs’ role in the Victorian Christmas at the Inaugural Site.  She chaired or co-chaired the gardeners’ decorations for 13 years and died last year at age 88. The epergne is meant to be used each year in the holiday decorations at the TR Inaugural Site.

Swags are mentioned often in the newspaper accounts.

A Dec. 22, 1897 article from the Buffalo Evening News described the decorations at a ball held by Mr. and Mrs. Frank H. Goodyear at the Twentieth Century Club that was attended by 400 to 500 people. According to the article, the ballroom was canopied with laurel roping, centering at the chandelier. The balcony pillars were wound with laurel, and a network of laurel roping ornamented the balcony railing.

At a debutante ball in 1900, holly and smilax wound stair railings and door arches.

At a ball hosted by Mrs. William H. Gratwick of Delaware Avenue in 1902, “Garlands of laurel, holly and ground pine festooned the walls, large bells made of green leaves and poinsettia flowers were suspended from the chandeliers, and the colored globules of hundreds of electric lights added to the Christmassy effect.”

Willowridge Garden Club

Above is a swag created by the Willowridge Garden Club using greens, pine cones, silver bells and pink and burgundy ribbons. The swags match large wreaths hung in the windows.

Dress forms with period gowns from the site’s costume collection accent the decorations.

The decorations can be viewed until Friday, Dec. 30 at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, 641 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. The  museum may be visited by guided tour only. Tours are scheduled every hour on the half-hour, beginning at 9:30 a.m. weekdays and 12:30 p.m. weekends. The last tour is at 3:30 p.m. Group rates are available.

The site will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Photo by David A. Eckhardt of Hamburg, NY.

From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, we in the Buffalo area spend a lot of time planning menus, baking, cooking, dining with family and nibbling at parties.

So while we’re thinking of food, let’s shift our focus slightly and look at some important questions:

How do we sustain our supply of locally grown food?

How do we make sure our children and grandchildren enjoy the abundance and variety of locally produced food that we now take for granted in Western New York?

A local farmer, a local food editor and other panelists discussed these issues in an event last week held by the Western New York Land Conservancy at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo.

Panelists were, from left, Rich Woodbridge of McCollum Orchards in Lockport; Lisa Tucker of Edible Buffalo and of Food & Fork Network; Diane B. Held, senior New York field manager with American Farmland Trust, and Tim Bartlett, general manager of Lexington Co-operative Market. Photo by Connie Oswald Stofko.

A farmer’s view on local food

When we think of local foods, we often think of farmers markets. But there are other ways for farmers to distribute their produce locally.

Rich Woodbridge is a Lockport farmer whose business strategy is to sell his food locally. After his grandmother died, he and his wife Bree moved from California to tend the 100-acre farm that was started in the 1820s, when the Erie Canal was built, and has been in his family for six generations.

When his grandmother ran the farm, she sold all her apples and pears to one customer: Gerber, the national baby food company.

Many farmers find that it takes more work to sell produce locally, Woodbridge said.  They have to spend time in the car driving to the processing plant or to co-ops, and that’s time that could be spent in the fields. The trick is to figure out how farmers can offer food locally and still make a profit.

Though the McCollum Orchards have been around for almost 200 years, the land hasn’t been farmed in awhile, so the enterprise is in many ways a new start up. It isn’t producing as large a supply of fruit as it did when it was previously farmed.

Photo by David A. Eckhardt of Hamburg, NY.

That’s one reason why the Woodbridges are looking to sell their produce locally. They’re specializing in hops for beer, which they hope will differentiate them from other local farmers. Most hops in this country are grown in Washington and Oregon, but hops can be grown very well in Western New York’s amazing soil, he said, and there’s a demand for hops from local breweries.

Food editor works to connect consumers, chefs, farmers

Lisa Tucker spent 13 years in the financial industry, but left to follow her passion.

“I like to eat, and I like food,” she said.

Tucker publishes Edible Buffalo, Western New York’s new quarterly print magazine dedicated to showcasing and promoting local food. She is also co-founder and president of Field & Fork Network, an organization that promotes connections between  consumers, food producers and food buyers in the eight-county region of Western New York. It strives to create a practical economic engine for local, sustainable agriculture and to provide our region with access to fresh, healthy food.

Photo by David A. Eckhardt of Hamburg, NY.

“We have a lot of choice here in terms of local food,” Tucker said. That’s because there is so much diversity in our farming. Western New York has dairy farms, commodity farms (which sell produce), specialty farms and livestock farms.

One idea to help farmers stay profitable while supplying food locally is a food hub. In Western New York, a food hub might  connect farmers with local hospitals and convention centers. Farmers would get customers who could buy in high volume, and the farmers would reap the economies of scale.

Farmland isn’t vacant land

Local farms are in danger because so many of us think that “farm land is vacant land waiting to be something else,” said Diane B. Held, senior New York field manager for the American Farmland Trust.

She told of a public hearing that was being held on whether 90 acres of farmland should be converted to use by a large chain store. One of the speakers innocently said that there was nothing on the land currently.

Photo by David A. Eckhardt of Hamburg, NY.

The farmer, who was seated next to Held in the audience, leaned over and said, “Actually, we’re growing alfalfa there.”

But to an outsider, that field that is producing alfalfa looked idle.

Only 8 percent of the soil in the world is prime soil, Held said, and a large percentage of that land is in the United States.

“Nobody is making more land,” Held said. “We have excellent soils here. It seems a bit of a sin to be taking some of the best soils in the world and converting them to other uses.”

Consumers play a role in sustaining local food supply

Forty years ago, Wonder Bread was the best-selling bread in America, but some people in Buffalo wanted whole grains. That was when the Lexington Co-operative Market in Buffalo was started, said Tim Bartlett, general manager.

The co-op partners with local farmers and gives people access to local, wholesome foods.

Photo by David A. Eckhardt of Hamburg, NY

However, making those foods available can be expensive. The staff at the co-op have to call farmers repeatedly and ask questions like, “Hey, do you have peaches today?”, then call the next farmer.

Consumers play an important role in making sure we have fresh local foods available to us, he asserted.

“If we keep shopping at low-price leaders, we won’t have local farmers left,” Bartlett said. “Consumers have to choose.”

How can you get local food cheap?

A Buffalo State College student asked the panelists how people who have a low income could get good local food.

“Plant a garden,” said Woodbridge, the Lockport farmer. He and his wife planted a test garden this summer that supplied almost all of their produce needs.

Photo by David A. Eckhardt of Hamburg, NY

“I think we spent $20 total the entire summer (on produce),” he said. “It’s amazing how much you can save if you garden.”

“Learn to cook,” said Tucker, the food editor. Cooking your own food is much less expensive than using prepackaged foods.

Get recipes from the generation that went through the Great Depression and World War II, suggested Held, the farmland advocate. The folks in that generation knew how to do everything cheap. She also suggested using whole foods.

The whole foods concept was echoed by Bartlett of Lexington Co-op. You can feed a family of four a delicious meal featuring beans and rice for about $6, he said, but it would cost $24 to feed them at McDonald’s.

East Aurora Garden Club

Members of Buffalo-area garden clubs had to be creative when planning holiday decorations for the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, 641 Delaware Ave., between North and Allen Streets, Buffalo.

East Park Garden Club

The theme this year incorporated “bells” and “belles.” To make things even more interesting, the theme colors were silver, burgundy and pink.

Yes, pink.

Pink showed up quite a lot in Christmas decorations around the turn of the last century, explained Lenora M. Henson, curator at the national historical site where Theodore Roosevelt took the presidential oath of office in 1901.

Buffalo newspapers of the time carried accounts of the splendid parties thrown by Buffalo’s high society, and pink roses were mentioned frequently. Burgundy was also a popular Victorian color.

Kenmore Garden Club

While you may not think of pink and burgundy as Christmas colors, the decorations that were created by clubs from the Eighth District Federated Garden Clubs of New York State look quite traditional.

The first photo is a close-up of a Christmas tree decorated by the East Aurora Garden Club. The belle at right is dressed in pink, while a burgundy ribbon provides a lovely backdrop. Silver-colored dried plant material adds glitter.

To the left  in the first photo is a Victorian image. Henson was delighted that several of the clubs used period artwork in their decorations.  The fan is a Victorian motif that you will notice in many of the decorations as well.

Orchard Park Garden Club

In the photo above left, you can see that the East Park Garden Club freely used pink in all of its decorations. Many soft pink flowers were used in the swag over the fireplace. Since the fireplace is no longer used to heat the room, a sleigh filled with pink gift boxes fills the space. The club also used wreaths in its decorations, and accented them with large bows in a light pink.

In the photo above right, the Kenmore Garden Club used pink in the table decorations to carry out the color theme. Fans were used as decorations on the table and tree. The tree was also decorated with tussy mussies and Victorian pictures.

At left, ladies’ party gloves add a unique touch to swags of fresh evergreens created by the members of the Orchard Park Garden Club.  The gloves are filled with flowers and tied with pink ribbon. (For your own home, colorful mittens and knit gloves could be used to brighten up a swag. That would be an interesting way to use gloves that have no match.)

Hamburg Garden Club

At right, the Hamburg Garden Club played with the “bells and belles” theme. A curio cabinet displays small bells, while dolls attired in period costume flank the centerpiece. The clothing and arrangement use burgundy and pink.

Below left, silver bells accent the wine-red wreath created by the Bowmansville Garden Club. What makes the wreath unique is that it is made of feathers.

Bowmansville Garden Club

Three clubs decorated the front porch area: Amherst Garden Club, Forest Stream Garden Club and Town & Country Garden Club. If you park in the back, make sure you take a walk around to the front to enjoy the decorations as well as the splendid architecture of the mansion. You can get a glimpse in the photo below right.

When you tour the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site, you’ll also see dress forms with period gowns from the site’s costume collection.

Special events, including luncheons, dinners and evening events,  continue this week during the Victorian Christmas celebration at the TR Inaugural Site.

The decorations will be up through Friday, Dec. 30.  Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. General admission is $5 per person.

Amherst Garden Club, Forest Stream Garden Club and Town & Country Garden Club

A shuttle van will run from the Holiday Inn parking lot (620 Delaware Ave.) to the Inaugural Site from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 9. Note that this service is not available in the evenings, on Saturdays, or on Friday, Dec. 16.

Next week we’ll show you more of the period decorations and share some of the historical information that the garden clubs used in creating their decorations.

Check out last year’s decorations:

Themes help gardeners coordinate decorations

Garden clubs re-create turn-of-century Christmas at Roosevelt Inaugural Site

Make these sturdy plant tags and you’ll definitely be able to keep track of your perennials.

You can keep the tags outside all winter and, unlike flimsy plastic tags that get trampled by rabbits or pushed over by heavy snow, these wooden plant labels will still be standing in spring.

Best of all, they’re so pretty that you don’t have to try to hide them during the summer.

Make them for your own garden, and make them as gifts for gardening friends.

Anne Gareis of Buffalo shows us step by step how to make these beautiful and practical labels.

You’ll need a few simple tools to make these plant tags. If you don’t have the tools you need, consider borrowing tools through the Buffalo Tool Library. They have gardening tools, too!