Bringing Nature Home: Creating your own Backyard Habitat | Speaker Series at the Botanical Gardens

Name: Bringing Nature Home: Creating your own Backyard Habitat | Speaker Series at the Botanical Gardens
Start: 2025-09-11T18:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-09-11T19:00:00-04:00
Location: 2655 South Park Ave, Buffalo, NY, United States, New York 14218

Schedule

Thu Sep 11 2025 at 06:00 pm to 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

2655 South Park Ave, Buffalo, NY, United States, New York 14218 | Buffalo, NY

Whether your garden space is a planter on your balcony, many acres of land, or something in between, your garden is an important part of our ecosystem! In this friendly and informal class, we’ll talk about why these spaces matter so much and how they fit into the bigger picture. You’ll learn about the important elements of an ecosystem, and some simple ways to add them to your own space. We’ll be talking about plants, water features, and all of the critters you can support right in your own backyard.
Meet your instructor, Erin Masterson Holko:
Erin is a Buffalo area native. She grew up in East Aurora, working in the family garden center alongside her dad and brothers. After attending Mount Mercy Academy in South Buffalo, she studied something completely non-garden related at the University of Rochester. After graduating, she moved to San Diego, CA where she did use her degree in Russian language for several years. After realizing that she much preferred being outdoors and playing with plants and animals, Erin found herself back in the nursery industry. Her city home garden grew to include not just fruits and vegetables, but chickens and eventually honeybees. The more she learned about honeybees, the more the love for them grew. This passion turned into a retail beekeeping supply store in San Diego where Erin taught others about urban beekeeping.
In 2016, Erin moved back to the Buffalo area, along with her husband and two sons. Today she lives in West Falls with her family, a pack of golden retrievers, alpacas, donkeys, goats, chickens, and of course honeybees. She works with her dad and her brother at Masterson’s Garden Center in East Aurora, where she oversees green goods operations as well as many other areas of the business. In addition, she owns and operates Beekeeper’s Garden Apothecary, growing and creating herbal remedies utilizing plants and products sourced from the beehive.