Landscaping North Buffalo yards means working with small backyards, mature maples and the 1920s to 1940s brick and frame homes that fill the blocks between Hertel Avenue, Delaware Park and the Kenmore line. The lots are a little wider than Elmwood Village and the houses a little newer, but the same rules apply: tight access, big trees over small spaces, and a driveway that has to be plowed between two garages.
North Buffalo stretches from Delaware Park and the Scajaquada north to Kenmore Avenue, with Hertel Avenue as its main street and Delaware, Colvin and Elmwood Avenues running north and south through it. The side streets off Hertel and around Starin Avenue were built out mostly between the 1910s and the 1940s: brick and frame colonials, bungalows, foursquares and doubles on lots that are deeper than they are wide, with a driveway down one side and a detached garage at the back.
Along the south edge, Nottingham Terrace and the streets facing Delaware Park carry larger homes and bigger trees. Toward Kenmore the lots tighten. The whole neighborhood sits on flat lake plain clay with slow drainage, which shows up as wet backyards in April and heaved fence posts in year three. Our Buffalo service page covers the city conditions, and the Kenmore page covers the village just across the line, which shares the same housing and the same clay.
The typical North Buffalo backyard is a rectangle between the house, the garage and two fences, with a mature Norway or silver maple somewhere in it or just over the line. That tree sets the conditions: shade for most of the day, a root zone that dries the soil near the trunk, and a leaf drop every October that buries the lawn.
Lawns here fight shade, compaction and maple roots. The small front lawns do well with a regular mowing schedule, fall overseeding and a leaf cleanup that gets the maple drop off the grass before snow. Backyards under heavy canopy often do better with a smaller lawn and larger beds than with a fight against the shade.
Our Buffalo lawn care service covers mowing, overseeding, fall cleanup and the leaf pickup that a street full of maples demands. Cornell Cooperative Extension guidance on cool-season turf in New York backs the fall timing: September overseeding and a last fertilizer application before the ground freezes.
The trees that line the streets and shade the backyards here are mostly maples planted when the houses were built, which puts many of them at 80 to 100 years old. Silver maples in particular grow fast, get big, and shed limbs in wet snow and wind. Norway maples hold up better but shade everything beneath them.
Most North Buffalo tree work is pruning: deadwood over the roof, limbs over the garage, clearance from the house and the service drop. The International Society of Arboriculture recommends a regular cycle for mature trees, and on a lot this size every limb has a target under it. Our Buffalo tree trimming and pruning service handles it, usually from the 100 foot tracked lift where the driveway allows, or by climbing where it does not.
A silver maple with a split trunk, a hollow at the base or a lean toward the house is past pruning. Tree removal North Buffalo customers call about is almost always a backyard tree with no truck access, so it comes down in sections, rigged and lowered, with wood carried out the side yard. Winter, with frozen ground and bare branches, is the easiest season for it. Our Buffalo tree removal page covers the process.
With houses 10 to 15 feet apart, a fence here is a shared wall. Most run along the backyard lines and across the back by the garage, with a gate at the side yard.
| Fence | Typical use in North Buffalo | What we check |
|---|---|---|
| 6 foot wood or vinyl privacy | Backyard property lines | Survey pins, good side out, posts below the 42 inch frost line |
| 4 foot wood picket or aluminum | Front yards and side yards facing the street | City front yard height limits, corner sight triangles |
| Chain link | Rear lines, dog yards, budget runs | Can be dressed with plantings along the inside |
| Fence repair | Leaning 1990s fences on shallow posts | Reset posts below frost depth, replace rotted rails |
Clay heaves shallow posts. A fence set at 24 inches leans within a few winters; one set below 42 inches with a gravel base and a concrete collar stays plumb. Our Buffalo fence installation page covers materials, permits and the property line questions that come up when the neighbor’s garage sits a foot off the line.
The North Buffalo driveway is long, narrow and ends at a garage. Snow has to be pushed from the street to the back of the lot, because there is no room to stack it beside the house without burying the neighbor’s side door. Parked cars on both sides of the street and the city plow ridge at the apron complete the picture.
Here is what snow plowing North Buffalo looks like on our routes.
If you are searching for Buffalo snow plowing near me from a Hertel Avenue address, our Buffalo snow plowing page covers the city routes and what the contract includes.
North Buffalo sits north of the heaviest Lake Erie bands, which usually set up over South Buffalo and the Southtowns. The neighborhood sees something close to the NWS Buffalo average of about 95 inches a season, well below Orchard Park or Hamburg, and often a few inches less than the airport in Cheektowaga. It is still a long winter, and with no place to put the snow on a narrow lot, the banks grow until March.
The clay underneath drains slowly and heaves what is set shallow. Fence posts, paver edges and patio bases all need to account for the 42 inch frost depth. In spring the backyards that sit lower than the neighbor’s stay wet for weeks.
Every job starts with a free written estimate, valid 30 days. A crew lead walks the lot with you, checks the side yard access, looks at the maples over the house and the garage, finds the property pins, and for snow customers sets the pile zone and stakes the driveway. Our own crews do the work, not subcontractors, and plow damage to lawns or fences is repaired in spring.
Shade-tolerant plants that handle dry, rooty soil: hostas, ferns, hydrangeas, boxwood, pachysandra and similar groundcovers. Lawn under a mature maple stays thin no matter how often it is seeded, so most North Buffalo backyards look better with a smaller lawn, edged beds along the fences and a paver path or patio where the traffic is.
Not unless it shows real problems: a split or included-bark fork, a hollow at the base, mushrooms on the trunk, large deadwood over the house or a new lean. A healthy silver maple can be pruned to reduce weight over the roof and keep it safe. A crew lead can look at it and tell you honestly which side of the line it is on.
Below the frost line, which Erie County puts at 42 inches. On the clay in North Buffalo, posts set shallower heave a little each winter and lean within a few years. We set posts in a gravel base with a concrete collar below 42 inches so the fence stays plumb through freeze and thaw cycles.
To the back of the lot, usually, or a front corner agreed before the season. Stacking snow beside the house buries the neighbor’s side door and your own basement windows, so we push it the full length of the drive. The pile location is set at the fall walkthrough and marked with stakes so every pass goes to the same place.
Yes. Kenmore sits directly north of North Buffalo across Kenmore Avenue, with the same 1900s to 1930s housing, the same clay and the same narrow driveways. Our routes run through both, and the Kenmore page on our site covers the village specifics, including its own sidewalk clearing expectations.
Late fall through late winter is best for maples. The tree is dormant, the branches are bare so the crew can see every defect, and the frozen ground protects the lawn from the lift. Avoid pruning maples in early spring when sap is running heavily. Dead or hanging limbs over the house should be dealt with whenever they are found.
Live off Hertel? Call (585) 560-1134 or request a free written estimate and a crew lead will walk your yard, trees, fence line and driveway with you.
Landscaping Elmwood Village Buffalo homes comes down to three things: narrow lots, big old trees and a shared driveway that has to be plowed without touching the neighbor’s car. The houses between Delaware Park and Allentown were built from the 1880s through the 1920s on lots often 30 to 40 feet wide, and every service we offer here, from tree work to fences to snow plowing, is shaped by that footprint.
Elmwood Village runs along Elmwood Avenue from roughly Allentown north to Delaware Park, bounded by Delaware Avenue on the east and Richmond Avenue on the west. The streets off Elmwood, and the Olmsted parkways that thread through it, Bidwell Parkway, Chapin Parkway and Lincoln Parkway, are lined with Victorians, Queen Annes, four-squares and the two-flat Buffalo doubles the city is known for. Much of the neighborhood sits in a National Register historic district.
The typical lot is deep and narrow. The house takes most of the width, a driveway or a strip of grass runs down one side, and the backyard is a rectangle behind the house with a garage at the back. Many driveways are shared, with the property line running down the middle of the concrete.
Soil is flat lake plain clay with slow drainage, so backyards lower than the neighbor’s stay wet into May. Our Buffalo service page covers city-wide conditions.
A small city backyard has to do several jobs at once: a place to sit, a path to the garage, somewhere for the bins, a little green and privacy from three neighbors. The design work is in the layout.
Our Buffalo landscaping page covers beds, plantings, pavers and grading for city lots.
The big trees are the reason people move here. The parkways and side streets carry mature maples, oaks, lindens and sycamores, many older than the houses. They also drop limbs on roofs, lift sidewalks and shade lawns into moss.
Trees in the tree lawn between the sidewalk and the curb are city trees. Pruning or removing one needs permission from the city’s forestry division, and we do not touch them without it. Trees inside your property line are yours, and that is where most of our work happens: a silver maple leaning over the garage, a dead ash in the back corner, a limb over the neighbor’s roof.
There is no way to get a truck into the backyard, so trees come down in sections, rigged and lowered, or reached with the 100 foot tracked lift from the driveway where it fits. Winter, with frozen ground and dormant gardens, is the easiest season for this. Our Buffalo tree removal and tree trimming and pruning pages cover both.
The International Society of Arboriculture recommends a regular pruning cycle for mature trees to remove deadwood before it falls, and on a lot this tight, deadwood over a roof or a sidewalk is the first thing we look for. Nearby Parkside has the same Olmsted-era canopy, and our Parkside tree care guide goes deeper on century trees.
Fences here do two jobs: privacy from the neighbor six feet away, and a backdrop for a small garden. The property line matters more than anywhere else we work because the fence often sits inches from the neighbor’s foundation or driveway.
| Fence type | Where it fits in Elmwood Village | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Wood privacy, 6 foot | Backyard property lines, around the patio | Posts below the 42 inch frost line on clay; good side facing out |
| Vinyl privacy | Same as wood, lower maintenance | Panel width versus a tight run between garages |
| Aluminum or ornamental | Front yards on the parkways, around a side entry | Height limits in front yards; historic district character |
| Wood picket, 3 to 4 foot | Front yards, matches the house era | Sight lines at the driveway |
Front yard fence height is limited by city zoning, and corner lots have sight triangle rules at the intersection. A survey or the pins settle the line before we dig. See our Buffalo fence installation page for materials and process.
Snow plowing here is a different job from a suburban driveway. The driveway is 8 to 10 feet wide, runs between two houses, often serves two households, and ends at a garage with no room to turn around. The street is lined with parked cars, and the city plow leaves a ridge across the apron on every pass.
The City of Buffalo requires property owners to clear the public sidewalk in front of the house, and on a double that includes the tenant’s stretch too. Walk clearing can be added to a plow contract. Our Buffalo snow plowing page covers city routes, and our neighborhood by neighborhood plowing guide explains how the city routes are grouped.
Elmwood Village sits north of the heaviest Lake Erie bands, which usually set up over South Buffalo and the Southtowns, so it sees Buffalo’s roughly 95 inch average rather than the 120 plus of Orchard Park. The snow has nowhere to go, though. By February the banks between the houses are head high and the shared driveway is a trench.
The clay underneath heaves anything set shallow. A fence post or a paver edge that was not built for the 42 inch frost depth lifts over a couple of winters and leans by the third. Freeze and thaw also lifts old walk slabs where maple roots run under them.
Every job starts with a free written estimate, valid 30 days. A crew lead walks the lot with you, measures the side yard access, looks at the trees over the house and the neighbor’s, checks the property line pins, and for snow customers marks where the piles go and stakes the driveway. We talk through what fits in the space and what does not.
Our own crews do the work, not subcontractors. On a narrow lot that means sectional tree removal, hand-carried materials for fences and beds, and plow routes capped by mid November so every driveway on the list gets done in a storm. Plow damage to lawns or fences is noted and repaired in spring.
Yes. Shared driveways are the norm here and we plow them with narrower trucks and a pile plan agreed by both households before the season. The best arrangement is a single contract covering both houses, with snow stacked at the back of the lot or in an agreed corner so neither side gets buried. Stakes mark the edges and the pile zone.
The City of Buffalo owns and maintains the trees in the tree lawn between the sidewalk and the curb. Pruning or removal of those trees goes through the city’s forestry division. Trees inside your property line are your responsibility, and that is where we do most of our Elmwood Village tree work, including pruning over roofs and removals in tight backyards.
In sections. A climber or the 100 foot tracked lift, where it fits down the driveway, takes the tree apart from the top, lowering each piece with rigging so nothing lands on the house, the garage or the neighbor’s fence. Wood and brush are carried out the side yard. Frozen ground in winter makes the carry easier and protects the lawn.
City zoning limits front yard fence height, and the usual choices that fit the house style are a low wood picket or an aluminum ornamental fence. Corner lots have sight triangle rules at the intersection. If the house is in a locally designated historic district, exterior changes visible from the street may need review, so we check before the estimate is final.
Yes. The City of Buffalo requires property owners to clear the public sidewalk along their lot, and on a double that includes the full frontage. Sidewalk clearing can be added to a snow plowing contract so the walk is done on the same visit as the driveway, which matters on the long frontages along the parkways.
Less than a suburban yard in materials, often more per square foot in labor, because everything is carried in by hand through a side yard. A backyard refresh with a paver path, edged beds and plantings typically lands in the low to mid thousands depending on scope. We give a free written estimate rather than a guess.
Live between the park and Allentown? Call (585) 560-1134 or request a free written estimate and a crew lead will walk your lot, trees, fence line and driveway with you.