This garden, located in Ladue, Missouri, reflects the vision, planning, implementation and maintenance of a master gardener. The genius loci of the garden underscores the owner’s innate sense of scale, proportion, light and shadow, textural variety of materials and the relationship between the house and the garden. Over a sixty-year period, she has transformed a […]
The Taneyhills Library Garden was a bare landscape. With a grant from the Master Gardeners of the Ozarks and donations from supporters of the library, new gardens were established. One of the Master Gardeners and a Library board member helped establish the Taneyhills Junior Gardeners. The Junior Gardeners helped beautify the library grounds while learning […]
I have been raising Monarch butterflies in my kitchen for years. They do not usually survive if I leave them outside on the milkweed plants in my yard. Success inside is 99%. I released seven in the spring. I had one caterpillar in July this year. Currently (8/18/2017) I have twenty-one caterpillars in my kitchen. […]
The best part about having an urban pollinator garden? Relaxing in the swing, admiring the rabbits, squirrels, birds, butterflies and bees, all the while answering questions from patrons visiting the Peacemaker and Sidney Street Cafe. The guests continually stop to ask about the unfamiliar native plants… Ironically, these plant species are strangers to our community, […]
This year was the first full growing season at this house with my garden of Missouri native wildflowers and plants. I couldn’t have been happier and I’d venture to say that the butterflies, bees, and birds enjoyed it as well. Sure, I like the occasional mums on my porch next to the pumpkins in the […]
My sister and I planted milkweed in our gardens for several years before we actually found monarch caterpillars. Each year we would discuss our milkweed and wonder where the caterpillars could be. Then, one summer evening, she invited me to dinner. As I was standing in her kitchen, unaware, she suddenly asked me to go […]
My first love of gardening and all nature started as a child with numerous camping and fishing trips with my parents. My father always taught us the beauty of nature and of need to protect and share it. As an adult my garden has always been a place of beauty but also a learning experience […]
I’ve always lived what I’ve considered an environmentally conscious life-style; living in a dense, urban neighborhood, biking or taking transit to work, shopping local, eating a primarily plant-based diet, recycling, composting and much, much more. I’ve kept a vegetable garden for years and recently started raising backyard chickens, (which has been fun for me and […]
In 2014, students and teachers worked together to create a monarch butterfly garden on the campus of Forsyth School in the city of St. Louis. Fifth grade big friends and junior kindergarten little friends installed 120 milkweed plants, Asclepias incarnata, about one foot apart, to serve as a food source for monarch caterpillars as well […]
When I was pregnant with my first child, I began to plant. I think that I wanted to see whether anything would really grow. Honestly, I didn’t expect much to happen. But in the Spring, just before my daughter made her appearance, magically my tulips, anemones, and daffodils appeared. I was hooked. My mom casually […]
My wife Juanita and I were inspired to plant the Maple Ave. Monarch Butterfly Garden in Summer 2015, after viewing the University City In Bloom Midland and Olive Blvd. flower garden because the garden at the Ruth C. Porter Mall Park crossing, containing Prairie Dropseed, was drab. The project was undertaken as a 1711 Maple […]