St. Louis calls it Shaw’s Garden, after the English merchant who founded it in 1859 and gave it to the city: the Missouri Botanical Garden, the oldest botanical garden in continuous operation in the United States and a National Historic Landmark of living collections.
Its 79 acres pack centuries of garden art into one address on Shaw Boulevard: the Climatron, the pioneering geodesic-dome rainforest of 1960; Seiwa-en, the largest traditional Japanese garden in North America; the serene English Woodland and Chinese gardens; Henry Shaw’s own 1849 Tower Grove House; and seasonal spectacles from orchids to the two-million-light Garden Glow.
Behind the beauty runs one of the world’s great plant-science institutions — but for visitors, it is simply the loveliest walk in Missouri.
The Missouri Botanical Garden is at 4344 Shaw Boulevard. Hours and tickets at mobot.org.
