Buffalo is a city with a reputation for cold. But while winter snowfalls—averaging nearly eight feet a year—seem punitive to plants, hardy shrubs and perennials are fine. They need to be dormant. It’s the gardeners who suffer, itching for green while snow seals their city. Buffalo gardeners burst out of the gates in spring like horses heading for home. Tender annuals started indoors from seed are planted out. Tropical tubers overwintered in basement pots are moved up into the sun. Thousands of spring bulbs explode on sidewalks. And while winter seems long, the growing season’s northern days are longer. In Buffalo, plants grow fast.

Every year, over the last weekend in July, the city of Buffalo opens its doors and its gardens to neighbors and out-of-town visitors, hosting the biggest free open garden event in the United States. Garden Walk Buffalo showcases more than 400 gardens, a phenomenon that attracts upwards of 65,000 visitors over two days. Recently I visited Buffalo’s green streets and got a taste of gardening, Buffalo-style. Here are eleven ideas to steal from the city’s gardens:

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

Driveway Gardens

Above: In a narrow strip between pavers and fence beside her driveway on West Delavan Avenue, Jennifer Guercio grows irrepressible Clematis jackmannii, goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus), and a meadow rue (a Thalictrum species) which “withstand harsh weather and many feet of snow,” right beside the driveway. Surviving severe cold as well as the insults of salt and ice are standard requirements for plants this close to a working driveway in city famous for long winters (its USDA plant hardiness zone hovers around 6a).

Fence Flowers

Above: Jennifer Guercio’s garden does not stop at the fence but spills over abundantly, inviting the garden visit to begin before the gate has been opened.

Hell Strip Gardens

Above: Like many Buffalo gardeners, Jennifer takes the garden to the hell strip, the compromised sliver of earth between sidewalk and street. Here daylilies crowd the overstuffed beds, along with the flowering equivalent of an all-you-can eat buffet of perennials and annuals.

Frosty Ornaments

Above: It is a rare Buffalo garden that is without art, ornament, or statuary of some kind. Beside intricately painted Victorian homes, eccentric combinations and found objects have come to define Buffalo style. Jennifer changes her decorations as often as she switches out plants, and in her midsummer garden a frosted hourglass is a voluptuous companion for the upright feathery plumes of pink astilbe.

Wall Gardens

Above: Jim Charlier, a moving force behind the garden walk since the early days (“Jim is Garden Walk Buffalo,” says Mike Shadrack, a former British bobby, current Buffalonian and author of The Color Encyclopedia of Hostas) reckons that Buffalonians will hang anything on a wall. In a substantial wooden picture frame he has planted a collection of sedums and Sempervivum in moss. They overwinter in place, covered in canvas.

Start with One Plant