If you’re tired of watering the lawn, switch up grass for rocks with a modern rock garden. Appreciate their natural, rugged beauty, plus they are low maintenance. SLHL asked local landscapers to share their favorite plants for rock gardens.

Over the river (okay, what you ford is really a shallow stream) and through the woods…down a long gravel road that turns into a steep gravel driveway…but what you come to on top of a high hill in Wildwood is hardly your grandmother’s house.

That old saying about there being nothing new under the sun may just be coming true under the sun in your back yard. Back in Medieval times monks combined flowers, vegetables and medicinal herbs in the gardens surrounding their monasteries. The French coined the term “portage” to describe formally laid out kitchen gardens that mixed flowers, vegetables and fruits in ways that were beautiful as well as useful.

When the Judges purchased their home in 2009, the turn-of-the-last-century Victorian didn’t need much work. That’s because Kelly’s grandparents – the previous homeowners, who’d purchased the place in the sixties – had already put in enough sweat equity to revive the once-tired stick style.

For our June/July Outdoor issue, we asked local design professionals their opinion on outdoor water fountains. Are they a classic or a craze? Here’s what the professionals had to say.

For Michelle, whose garden encompasses eight acres in the heart of St. Louis County, gardening is all about sharing. Whether it is three cuttings of special mint passed on to a fellow gardener, dinner in a succulent-filled greenhouse for family and friends or an invitation to the general public to view the garden as part of last year’s Nature Conservancy tour, she firmly believes the historic garden, of which she now considers herself the caretaker, is meant to be enjoyed by others.