Have you been to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. My daughter and I took a road trip to St Louis for an antique show in the fall of 2018. Since it has been so cold here and another snow dump this morning I decided to share a bit of the gardens history with you because I found it fascinating not to mention eye candy. Grab a hot chocolate!
The Missouri Botanical Gardens founder Henry Shaw was a 17 year old boy who came to St Louis via New Orleans to represent his families cutlery business back in England. Though St Louis was just a three block village at the time, young Henry found it to be bustling with potential. He opened a hardware store furnishing it with fine iron works from the family foundry in Sheffield England. St Louis was quickly becoming a stopover for settlers who needed pick axes and tools to settle their homesteads moving west. In 20 years time he had amassed a fortune of $250,000.00.
He purchased 79 acres of prairie with only two Sassafras trees outside of town, and in 1849 commissioned the architect George I Barnett to build his country home “Tower Grove”.
Retiring at age 40 he decided to take the “Grand Tour” stopping in England for the very first Worlds Fair. Enamored with English and Italian Gardens he met Sir William Jackson Hooker, Englands director of the Royal Botanical Gardens @ Kew and was greatly influenced to create his own Botanical Garden.
Upon returning home his new house was complete and he spent the next 40 years creating a “Tabernacle to Nature”. Shaw wanted his garden to become a place of science and knowledge. There was only one problem. Henry Shaw knew nothing about gardening so he contacted his old friend Sir William Henry Jackson, who put him in touch with a St Louis German Physician and amateur Botanist Dr George Engelman, who put him in touch with Asa Grey of Harvard the countries leading naturalist. Together they gained a foot hold and in 1859 the first visitors were welcomed to the garden.
Shaw sent out representatives to collect specimens and books on botany all over the world and eventually had amassed a large enough collection to build a 7000 s/f museum/library in 1860. This building also designed by George I Barnett is lined with specimen cabinets on either side, a gallery above for a library and a gorgeous ceiling painted with a mural of floral and fauna of all the species exhibited in the garden. Sadly the museum/library was quickly abandoned and deemed too small for the ever growing collection. After an extensive renovation the Museum/Library is open once more and renamed the Peter and Stephen Sachs Museum for the people who funded the restoration of the museum/library.
Another Barnett building, the Orangery was built in 1882 to over winter citrus trees and palms. It now holds an extensive collection of Camelia’s and a Stink Plant that just happened to unfurl itself while we were there. It even made the local news so we had to check it out. This thing is huge coming in at about 8-9′ tall!
The pond and wonderful sculptures welcome you as you enter the garden and it is the first page of what becomes a picture book of impressions as you stroll along its path. There is a surprise at every turn and even though it is now in the heart of the city you feel secluded and protected all at the same time.
Formal Boxwood Garden
Victorian Garden, Sculptures of geese congregating around a pond some getting ready to fly. So fun.
Living in land locked Nebraska just the hint of a waterfall is magnificent in the Japanese Garden.
MSG Photo
Japanese Garden
George Washington Carver Garden has all kinds of interesting quotes as you walk the path and there was a cotton plant which I had never actually seen close up.
Around another bend a cacophony of bronze raccoons are gleefully playing on some tumbled stones you can feel their joy
The sun is starting to set and the path lights are coming on and yet again another surprise, a sculpture of a small flock of sheep
Before Henry Shaw died he had his mausoleum constructed and “sat” for his own sarcophagus for the tomb.
A life long bachelor, Henry died August 25, 1889 and left the gardens in the capable hands of a Board of Trustees to guide it and carry on his vision. Over 130 years it is now the 3rd most important Botanical Garden in the world.
Have you been? What did you think?
Thanks for stopping by on another snowy day!
Shelley
