Both poinsettias and miniature railroads share top billing at the Holiday Festival in the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Garden, 2655 South Park Avenue, Buffalo, New York. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. November 26, 2010, through January 2, 2011 (although they’ll close at noon on Christmas Eve and not be open at all on Christmas Day). Admission is $8.

The Poinsettia Show is said to be the biggest exhibition in the western New York region. The railways are staged by the Western New York Garden Railway Society.

The gardens are the product of three visionaries: landscaping architect Fredrick Law Olmsted, architects Lord & Burnham and botanist / plant-explorer John F. Cowell.

In 1868, the city of Buffalo Parks Commission started meeting with landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1822-1903) and Partners. For Buffalo, he designed a park system including connecting parkways and circles.

South Park was created in 1894-1900 from 156 acres of farm land. The conservatory was included to showcase tropical plant species while the rest of the park was designed to feature the more hardy temperate species including an Arboretum (collection of trees), a Pinetum (collection of evergreens), a Shrub Garden and a Bog Garden. The formal gardens around the conservatory were designed to lead visitors into the more informal park along many walking paths. The park also included a large pond for boating, a ring road for horse carriages, and a meadow. The walking paths as well as a boat house and bandstand were never completed.

The tri-domed glass, wood and steel building in South Park was designed by the premier conservatory designers of the time: Lord & Burnham, Co. from New York’s Hudson Valley. Shortly after it opened, thousands of visitors to the 1901 Pan-Am Exhibition took a long trolley car ride out to see the South Park’s conservatory and botanical gardens. The first director was John F. Cowell (1852-1915), a local attorney and educator who was considered a genius in botany and horticulture.