BUFFALO, N.Y. — When it comes to gardening, Ellie Dorritie relies on a singular sense to guide her.
"Mostly I garden with my nose, and I like things that really smell good," she told 2 On Your Side. "Just about everything here has a particular scent and all of it together, you can smell from a good distance away. It's like a little perfume factory."
Garden Walk Buffalo is celebrating its 30th anniversary this this weekend, and Dorritie has been part of 29 of them.
"A very nice neighbor who lives in Allentown was friends with the people on Norwood who started the Garden Walk, and at the end of the first Garden Walk he came and pounded on my door and said you've got to do this, because he saw what I was building," she remembered.
Since then, she has met people from around the world, all from in her yard on little Summer Street.
"I was really excited the year that we began to first keep track of where people were from," she said. "There were people from Denver, and people from Los Angeles and San Diego, there were people from Wisconsin who had similar gardening conditions to me, and people from Spain and Toronto. There was a family from St. Augustine one year who lamented about how difficult it was to grow things that needed a cold winter."
The gardens might be the draw, but that Buffalo hospitality is an important part of the formula that's kept Garden Walk Buffalo growing for three decades.
"Buffalonians are very special about sharing their gardens," Co-Chair Barbara Cavanagh said. "We have heard from people in other parts of the country that they would never let people in their yards, but people in Buffalo welcome them. They answer questions, they're very proud, of their gardens, how hard they've worked."
Some hosts might even say those interactions are the best part of the whole event.
"I love to get people to come and take pictures and take notes and tell each other what they want to do that's like what they see," Dorritie said. "Then plant their own gardens and share with their neighbors and get to know people around their neighborhood, and that's really what works for me too."
Garden Walk Buffalo runs Saturday and Sunday, July 27th & 28th, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Full details are available on the Gardens Buffalo Niagara website.