Four years ago when Mark Kalk set out to create the garden that would surround his Lafayette Square home, he found himself between a rock and a hard place. Literally. He and his partner Mark Lammert had just purchased four parcels of empty land grouped together to create a .3-acre site. On that space they planned to design and construct a new home in the style of the surrounding historic homes and a garden that would complement the beauty of the house. Following in the footsteps of both his father and grandfather, who were avid gardeners, the landscaping of the property fell to Mark Kalk.

A visit to the Ruth Palmer Blanke Boxwood Garden virtually transports visitors to another time and place, as the meticulous plantings display the Missouri Botanical Garden’s outstanding collection of boxwood. There are 60 unique varieties of boxwood in the Boxwood Garden, which have the reputation of being difficult to grow in the Midwest. Boxwoods have been valued in gardens for thousands of years, from the “pleasure gardens” of ancient Persia and the landscapes of Greece and Rome, to the formal gardens of Europe.

Dot your landscape with potted plants and flowers in beautiful planters. Colorful and decorative, planters add an extra touch of style to your yard.

one: Versatile wide opening planter, available at Greenscape Gardens and Gifts.

two: Colorful ceramic planter, available at SummerWinds Nursery.

three: Blue scalloped top planter, available at Sugar Creek Gardens.

The Shaw Nature Reserve (SNR) encompasses 2,400 acres of natural Ozark landscape, breathtaking Meramec River frontage, and an extraordinary diversity of native plant and animal habitats. The Missouri Botanical Garden founded the Shaw Nature Reserve, formerly known as Shaw Arboretum, in 1925 when coal smoke in St. Louis threatened the living plant collections at the Garden. The orchid collection was moved to the Reserve in 1926, but pollution in the city abated before it was necessary to move the entire plant collection.

When Connie and Lynn Suydam considered a move to the City of St. Louis, Connie had one requirement. “I had to have a place to put my fingers in the dirt,” she says firmly.

Sharon Buchanan gardens on two acres that she and her husband Larry are transforming from an out-of-control wilderness into a native Missouri showplace. Her efforts already are getting attention. Last December, Creve Coeur recognized the Buchanan garden as the best in the city.

That type of recognition should be no surprise when you learn a bit more about Sharon, who cannot remember a time when she did not love being outdoors. The love of the natural world led her to pursue a career in forestry at the University of Georgia, where her family lived at that time.