BUFFALO, NY - Garden Walk Buffalo is months away, but the hard work that goes into it has already started.
"It goes fast, it goes very fast. Sometimes you feel like you are racing against the clock," Anne Gareis, a Garden Walk gardener, said.
Anne Gareis has been part of Garden Walk Buffalo for 17 years on Johnson Park, and says she is finally getting outside to start the yard work now that temperatures are warming up.
"You must be adaptable. From March to April I'm starting things inside, then comes some decent weather and you can actually get out and start digging," Gareis said.
Anne says she even starts planning the garden in January so there's enough time to complete the gardens for the Garden Walk the last weekend of July - which is free to the public.
"It's a crazy amount of work. Things I start from seed, I also have cuttings from plants that I grew last year...there's artwork and sculptures..."
And down the road on North Pearl Street, more Garden Walk gardeners hard at work include Mark Di Giampaolo, who has been doing the walk for 15 years, and says this is one of the later starts to the season after a drawn out winter.
"Doesn't look like much now, but there will be quite the transformation there...can see all the brown and the black on the stems, this is all winter kill and will need to be pruned back," Di Giampaolo explained.
And you can expect something new at this year's 24th annual walk: Jim Charlier, past president of Garden Walk Buffalo and now on the Garden Walk Committee, says there will be new headquarters.
"The main change this year is we have a new larger head quarters at Evergreen Health. They will be more dispersed when getting their maps, and be able to find more parking down there just to visit those gardens."
Now just hoping for more nice gardening weather!
For more details you can visit gardensbuffaloniagara.com/events/garden-walk-buffalo/