City: St. Louis, MO

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (314) 577-9400, (800) 642-8842

Address: 4344 Shaw Boulevard

Description: The Missouri Botanical Garden was created by Henry Shaw, a prominent St. Louis businessman who opened his garden to the public in 1859. Inspired by the gardens of his native England, Shaw intended his garden to be a center for education, scientific research, and horticultural display. Today the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and maintains one of the world’s leading programs in botanical research. One of the garden’s most popular attractions is the 14-acre Japanese Garden, the largest Japanese strolling garden in the Western Hemisphere. The four-acre lake is complemented by waterfalls, streams, water-filled basins, stone lanterns, and dry gravel gardens that are raked into beautiful rippling patterns. Four islands rise from the lake to form symbolic images, and several Japanese bridges link the shorelines. Kids love to feed the giant, colorful koi (Japanese carp). The garden also contains cherry blossoms, azaleas, chrysanthemums, peonies, lotuses, and other Oriental plantings. Other attractions include the Ottoman Garden, complete with exotic Turkish plantings and fountains; an English woodland garden; a Strassenfest garden; a Nanjing Friendship Chinese Garden; the Kemper Center for Home Gardening, which features 23 residential-scale gardens within an eight-acre design and is a great place to learn about vegetable gardening, flower growing, planting ornamental shrubs, landscaping, and indoor plants; and the Climatron, a stunning geodesic-domed conservatory that houses a tropical rain forest display, including streams, waterfalls, and more than 1,200 species of plants in a natural setting. About half of the plants in the Climatron were collected in the field, which gives them more scientific value than plants raised in a greenhouse, and the facility is home to representatives of numerous endangered species. The Doris I. Schnuck Children’s Garden: A Missouri Adventure is two acres of interactive fun. Kids can explore wetlands, climb in a tree house, check out a limestone cave, and visit a Midwestern prairie village as they explore the world of Mother Nature (there is a small additional charge for this attraction). Children 12 and under are admitted free.