A rite of mid-summer in Buffalo has returned, as Garden Walk Buffalo brought thousands of people from near and far this weekend to see what city residents can do with a green thumb and the right yard.

The event is so prominent it has spawned a string of other garden walks across the region and even in the city.

Sponsors don’t count visitors, but there were clearly a lot of them on Sunday. Headquarters Committee Chair Dorothy Weitz said they even included the former head of horticulture at Disneyland Paris.

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Jinge “Jay” Hu’s passion for gardening goes far beyond his own meticulously maintained beds and exuberant container plantings. He enjoys talking about other gardens, including some from his past and others he recently discovered.

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Walk through the gardens of East Buffalo, meet the people who planted them and learn about the culture and history of the city’s Black community. Print a map. And plan a route to the blooms and plantings at the private homes, community gardens and urban farms throughout the 70 listed stops on this year’s expanded, East Side Garden Walk from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24.

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Oh, there is ugliness on Box Avenue. This cannot be denied. On Box Avenue, boys fire machine guns at other boys. Men race four-wheelers in the too-tall grass. An empty house on Box Avenue, useless to the world, becomes to drug dealers a place of endless utility, its porch a stage for all-day parties, its weeds a place to stash heroin and hide stolen cars.

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Anyone who knows anything about the local gardening scene knows that the last full weekend in July is reserved for Garden Walk Buffalo.

GWB has long been called “America’s largest garden tour.” It has grown from 29 gardens in 1995 to more than 300 this year. A little prep work can make your outing even more enjoyable.

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How lovely it would be to have a survey of all the gardeners and visitors to answer, “What was different in the gardens and on the walks this year?” No such survey exists, and my observations can only represent my experiences and what I heard during my random July visits on garden walks and the Tours of Open Gardens.

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