By Seamus Gallivan
Below the welcome sign on the website for Dore Landscape Associates is the statement, “We are an interesting group of people that do interesting things.” It’s no wonder, then, that they’re right at home in the middle of the 2012 National Garden Festival’s Front Yard Contest on Crowley Ave, at the southern line of Riverside Park.
Ed Dore is a lifer in the landscaping business, raised around Kensington Ave and now based in the Pendleton area, where he has operated Dore Landscape Associates for the past 30 of his 42 years in the trade. Going above and beyond an already admirable effort in transforming and/or preparing 11 homes on Crowley, Dore and his crew deflect attention for themselves, instead insisting that they’re representing the Western New York State Nursery & Landscape Association, or as he wishes to call it, Landscape WNY.
“Some would say about Crowley, ‘How many people there are going to call on us later to do further landscaping and other work?’” Dore said during a brief break from his hands-on work. “But we see a bigger picture.”
Ed Dore works solo
For the 70-year-old association that funds scholarships, works with students at McKinley High School, and collaborates with community organizations such as PUSH Buffalo, Re-Tree WNY, Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, and Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens, Dore has observed in three years of Front Yard Contests a unique experience among those who connected to the effort.
“Aaron Bartley from PUSH said in an article in The Buffalo News recently that landscaping is critical to community, and he’s absolutely right,” said Dore. “This is critical to building community – when you can get all these neighbors out together, they get energized to do more at their own houses and the park next to them.”
Ed Dore teaches Bea Tabar about her new landscaping at 55 Crowley
Dore has not only gone above and beyond in working on more lawns than originally planned – in one home lives an elderly Hungarian woman who speaks little English and is understandably skeptical about all these free services, so Dore called her daughter, who lives in Canada, to ensure proper communication. He has been passing his phone back and forth with her mother to ensure each party understands needs and services, and the fact that there are no strings attached to the Front Yard Contest.
“There is a firm belief among those in our group that this is a very worthy thing to do, and for me, this is fun,” he declared. “This is what we do, and we enjoy this opportunity to give back.”
