Speakers, Symposia & Special Events

Special Events with Featured Speakers during the National Garden Festival

Program details follow.

Program Details and Registration Information

July 23

Garden Symposium at the Forest Lawn Cemetary Chapel
Informational flyer available here

• 9:30am: Siobhan Nehin - Magical Garden and Patio Transformations - taking spaces from blah to a-ha
• 11:00am: Virginia Burt - Creating Sacred Spaces in your Garden
• 12:00pm: Lunch - Box lunch from the Quaker Bonnet
  During lunch there will be a Display from the garden fairies. Meet a small flock of Garden Fairies, who are flying in for the Garden Festival, part of a 500 strong group artistic gardeners from Tampa Bay Florida. See the Garden Fairies demo how to make personalized garden mementos. Using letters pressed into cement, you will learn how to make customized stepping stones and plaques. The Garden Fairies will also talk about their latest community beautification project- a 22' x 17' mosaic mural.
• 1:00pm: Richard Benfield - The Great Botanic Gardens of the World
• 2:15pm: Sandy Starks - Women and Gardens of Forest Lawn

Gardening Mondays lunchtime series at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library,
main floor, (every Monday through August 30, Noon-1PM, Free and Open to the Public ).
Presented in support of the Library’s current exhibition In the Garden: The Art of Botanical Illustration (now through September 26)
Informational flyer available here

July 12

Jim Charlier- Garden Walk Buffalo and the National Garden Festival
Enjoy the insider story of the national phenomenon called Garden Walk Buffalo (America’s largest event of its kind), with pictures of the gardens that 30 national magazines have made famous. This 2-day “walk” gave birth to the new National Garden Festival we’re celebrating this summer in Buffalo.

July 19

Sally Cunningham-Garden Tours and the Take-Home Lessons
So many people walk these walks, and take their pictures—but what can gardeners really learn from how others do it? Sally will share tips on how to be a garden voyeuer and take home useful information. Learn to look at the use of space, focal points, choices of art, plant selection, and how to put them together for impact.

July 26

Mary Gurtler-Add Impact with Containers
Gurtler of Lockwoods Greenhouse is known for her bold container designs using annuals, perennials, and grasses. She has won Cornell’s Kathy Pufahl statewide contest for mixed containers, and will demonstrate how you can select plants and put them together for amazing results. Plant list included. (Take and demo, with a door prize!)

August 2

Jessica DiPalma-The Art of Flowers
Flowers and gardens have long been the source of inspiration for artists. DiPalma of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery staff will provide a look at works of art that incorporate floral themes and the artists, both historical and contemporary, who created these works.

August 2

Carol Ann Harlos-Bring in the Butterflies
Master Gardener Harlos shares her lifelong knowledge of gardening for the “angels in the garden.” Butterflies, as well as bees and important native insects, are suffering from habit depletion and
pesticide use, but you can attract and help them by the plant and design choices you make—even in your city yard.

August 16

Sally Cunningham-Extraordinary Perennials for WNY Gardens
With pictures and with some actual plants, Cunningham will share the less known or underused perennials that can add drama, color, and summer-to-fall excitement in your garden. Maintenance tips for increasing bloom periods, and plant combinations included.

August 23

Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers, Water, Water, Everywhere?
It’s summer and we’re watering our gardens. But are we doing it correctly for the plants? And how about the environment—how long can we keep doing this? A speaker from Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers will share how to save your rainwater and make the most of this precious, depleting resource—our next, serious environmental challenge.

August 30

Sally Cunningham-Native Plants and Eco-friendly Landscapes
Gardening and home landscaping sound nature-friendly, except that so many people do things that thwart or harm the natural systems that could be working for us. Consider how we might take a few steps in a new direction. Cunningham will help you choose some plants you might not know (native and suitable non-native), and see ways to use them in attractive home landscapes. You will also hear why we all need to do so, as habitat for wildlife is rapidly disappearing. Native plant lists for urban and suburban landscapes included.

More About Sally Cunningham

Sally Cunningham is a horticulturist, author, garden consultant, and Project Coordinator for the National Buffalo Garden Festival. She may be seen weekly on WIVB-TV (Channel 4) on Sunday Mornings, 8 a.m. News.