Upstate Gardeners' Journal

12/31/2025

Instead of New Years resolutions, please share your 2026 gardening plans! 🎉🎊🍾

12/31/2025

I have made the mature decision to stop buying plants for the remainder of 2025. Growth comes in many forms.🥰

12/30/2025

Next month, bring the whole family to the Botanical Gardens to learn about plants from around the world during Kids Day. On January 19 from 10am-4pm, admission for all kids 12 and under is free! This is the perfect way to spend the day off from school, get your tickets today at https://www.buffalogardens.com/events/kids-day/

12/30/2025

12/22/2025

Now is a great time to winter sow those native milkweed seeds using the milk jug method. If you need seeds, click here: mybutterflylady.etsy.com
Illustrated by Martha Atkins of Skycrest Studios. Used with permission.

12/22/2025

12/20/2025

TRAILING VINES: Looking for some inexpensive, quick ideas for the green thumb in your life? I recently started to redecorate my office that had been interrupted by almost a year of building renovations. (This is my non-UGJ workplace.) These offer some lovely and fertile ideas for giving!

1.) Miniature Scene: Goodwill, your glassware cache, or even garden stores will have suitable containers. (This container came from Ballantyne Gardens.) Add some soil, small foliage plants (especially ones tolerant of lower light like ferns), and small figures to make a scene. Fairy garden materials can make for good items or small figures of deer or other animals. I added some leca balls to lighten up the container and add visual appeal. Some Spanish moss, small stones, and other natural elements to complete the scene. Small foliage plants from Bristol's Garden Center and Carol Watson Greenhouse.

2.) Cuttings: With some small containers (like this ceramic La Fermière yogurt container) and some cuttings, you can make a gift that will become new plants in time for the recipient. Raid your recycle bin for glass containers, goodwill, or even the smallest canning jars will work. You can decorate them (outside only) with paint markers or leave plain. Spider plants and philodendrons are slam dunk to start in water. This is a ficus cutting I got at Ballantyne Gardens. They sell some cuttings for a low price! The little ceramic people with spider plants were clearance items from Michaleen's Florist and Garden Center a year or two ago. Keep your eyes open for possibilities! (Photo of some decorated containers from an Xmas gift made a few years back included!)

3.) Upgrade a living plant: Buy a foliage plant from you favorite greenhouse and transplant into a terracotta pot with matching saucer. The terra-cotta is low cost and great for plants, like this jade plant, that like it on the dry side. Potting soil from Bristol's Garden Center, jade plant from Carol Watson Greenhouse, and terra-cotta pot and saucer from Cross Creek Nursery.

4.) Amaryllis: Yes, yes, yes. Any amaryllis planted now will not bloom for the holidays. But I find that that watching the plant burst forth with life is my favorite part of an amaryllis. This is not for my office but planted up for a holiday gift. I potted it at Thanksgiving for an early January blossom. Soil and bulb from Bristols and container from goodwill. Leca balls from Ballantyne Gardens and some decorate gravel scatter from a craft store. (Not shown.)

If that doesn’t work, gift subscriptions to the UGJ and/or 585 Magazine always work!!! See our website for those! All at UGJ wish you a happy holidays!

Kimberly Burkard, Upstate Gardeners Journal

12/19/2025

12/19/2025

🤣👍

12/19/2025

LOL! 🤣

12/19/2025

We're down to the last week or so.....if you're still touting an empty door, there's still time!
We're still making wreaths fresh every day, so no worries about grabbing one mid-December, they'll be fresh and lush for the big day and beyond!