It all began with the land; a five-acre tract in Hillsboro, where Mary and Rich Patterson loved living and raising their two daughters, Sydney and Stella.

For a BIG birthday, many women would long for some bling or a trip to an exotic locale. This Town and Country homeowner requested some rocks of a different kind. Specifically, she wanted a rocky waterfall, more water in her backyard pond and more fish.

There are not many gardeners who could handle the challenge of taming a two-acre, hillside landscape. But then there are not many gardeners with the talent, knowledge and dedication of Laure Hullverson. Laure holds an Associate in Applied Science in Horticulture degree from the well-regarded program at St. Louis Community College-Meramec and also has a background as an interior designer.

There is a decorative oval stone just to the side of the lush, front-yard pathway in Brenda Dribin’s Webster Groves garden. Engraved on it are the words: I am still devoted to the garden. Thomas Jefferson

Writen in 1811 to American portrait artist Charles Willson Peale, this country’s third president, by then retired at his Monticello home, went on to note: “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth and no culture comparable to that of the garden.”

If there was a national gardening organization meeting in St. Louis during the past 25 years, chances are they made a visit to the stunning, two-acre hillside garden of Chick and Bruce Buehrig in Bellerive Acres. Be the groups favoring hostas, daylilies, daffodils, Japanese iris, conifers, perennials or just gardening in general, the Buehrigs have shared their plants and their knowledge of how to grow them with those visiting St. Louis. They have been equally generous with local garden clubs and community organizations.

Sticklers for the English language would argue that gardens couldn’t compose music or sing. But then they wouldn’t have been to Ginny Mueller’s garden. It harmonizes with the land via streams that spill down the hillside with boundless joy and hums quietly in pools filled with colorful koi. It trills to the tune of a landscape interspersed with five fountains. There are crescendos in the stone steps that climb the hillside and staccato notes in the sharp boulders that give the garden its definition.