If you have ever attended the hugely successful Garden Walk Buffalo -- it welcomes 70,000 garden enthusiasts to 400 private gardens over a two-day summer weekend -- you might think "Buffalo-style Gardens," by Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier is just a book featuring these innovative gardens, and that would be enough. But this book is so much more.
What is a Buffalo-style garden? "Buffalo-style gardens offer different approaches, different sensibilities, no two are remotely alike," according to the authors. "The common thread connecting hundreds of gardens is the individual artistic sense of the gardener, their way of personalizing their outdoor space, their love of the objects and plants they bring to it."
I have attended Garden Walk Buffalo on several occasions. While strolling through the gardens is a great way to pick up design ideas, it may not give you the skills and confidence to tackle a major reworking of your own garden. This is where the beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully written "Buffalo-style Gardens" really shines.
Cunningham is a gifted writer, her conversational style is very approachable, and Charlier pipes in with practical tidbits of information and how-to ideas that help to demystify the design process. Their style reminds me of a pair of friends sitting down with you at the table to help you formulate a workable garden plan.
Having visited many of the gardens in "Buffalo-style Gardens" myself, turning a page was like revisiting an old friend. With the authors' running commentary, we are encouraged to look beyond the surface of a pretty garden and see why these ideas work.
If you are considering updating your garden, or just want to see why these gardens are so popular, "Buffalo-style Gardens" offers plenty of practical, usable advice. Simply put, Buffalo-style gardens are unique, well executed, fun and most of all, well-loved.
--Theresa Forte "How to create your own Buffalo-style garden"
WOW... It's hard to write about a book when the introductory chapter exclaims it is "A New Kind of Garden: livable, relatable, original, free spirited."
Have you heard about Buffalo-Style Gardens? That is the title of a book published in 2019 by St. Lynn's Press and authored by Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier. As an aside, Buffalo, New York, will celebrate its silver anniversary of garden walks. Buffalo and environs are home to some of the largest number of residential gardens on private tour in North America. To be sure, these are very different types of landscapes than those portrayed in most other landscape texts. Something wonderful must be happening in Buffalo because more people tour these gardens than the combined attendance of two Disney parks.
If you are a big fan of color in the garden then consider the sub-title of Buffalo-Style Gardens that teases what is between the covers: "Create a Quirky, One-of-a-Kind Private Garden with Eye-Catching Designs." This is a book where one can see how riots of color and whimsy are personified. The book goes beyond the usual use of colorful flowers and shrubs as it includes the total integration of other plant material with hardscape (e.g., walkway), furniture (perhaps repurposed) and more. In this regard, psychologists use the word gestalt. Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language defines gestalt as an arrangement of separate elements of experience, emotion, etc., in a form, pattern or configuration so integrated as to appear and function as a unit that is more than a simple summation of its parts.
That nails the essence of a Buffalo-style garden. The authors refer to this as "a garden design laboratory for our 21st century sensibilities and lifestyle."
... Words and colorful photos do justice to the understanding of what these type gardens are all about. You too can emulate your inner being. Color up those drab Adirondack chairs, use sculpture, go to the thrift store and look for an out of the ordinary bench to color. If you are a collector of (you name it), show it off. These are all personal statements, so make this a YOU garden or, as the book says, go bold or go home. ... Surely it is not a Japanese-like garden, English garden, rose garden, pollinator garden or any other kind of specialty garden. Now you have created a one-of-a-kind Buffalo-style garden. Good for you, or as noted at the opening: WOW!
--George Graine
