Missouri Botanical Garden

Several days ago I went to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. (I've since spent the weekend in Kansas City and am now in Omaha, NE, but have finally managed to get around to updating.) I was looking forward to the visit a lot, since the garden has a stellar reputation and I'd used their online educational resources many times, and it did not disappoint.

Here are some photos I took, which cover but a few of the many places in the garden.

The garden has Victorian origins, and I like how they honor that in various places throughout with formal and informal beds in outrageous colors. This is near the entrance, but there's a whole Victorian District that I probably only took one photo of.

Cute little cactus.

Entrance to the rose garden (one of the rose gardens). That's a glass sculpture in yellow.

More glass inside the big tropical conservatory. I took a similar photo at the Lewis Ginter garden in Richmond. It's a thing, I guess.

There's a whole separate temperate conservatory, which is where they put the plants they wish would live outside in the winter but which just don't.

In the big WONDERFUL home demonstration garden area, an accessible garden plan.

Part of the vegetable garden in the same area: okra and Malabar spinach, cornering the market in mucilaginous textures.

I was just amused that the aggressive annual vines covered up the educational composting sign. Whoops!

View across the lake. The Japanese garden is along its edges.

George Washington Carver has his own garden, through which he is forever striding.

View of the hedge maze from the observation tower (which I went up first to figure out the pattern so I wouldn't make wrong turns).

Part of the herb garden: big recipe cards. This is a great idea which I may steal for the demo garden.

My homie Linnaeus.

Other things I really liked: the big children's garden, with plenty of room for running around, a treehouse playground, a cave, and lots of educational tidbits snuck in; and the little snippets of experimentation within all the lush beauty, detail and careful maintenance. There were quite a few signs basically informing the visitor "We don't know for sure if this will work (with the climate, soil, or other circumstances) but hey, let's give it a try!"

Absolute must-see when you're in the St. Louis area.