Leigh Walker confesses to being a gambler. She’s been hooked for over 25 years. Her addiction began in 1990, three years after she and her husband built their West County home. It started with just a few free plants provided by neighbors. The odds of those plants surviving were no safe bet. To illustrate the length of the odds, Leigh spins the tale of two broken pick axes, destroyed simply by trying to get a mailbox post planted in the rocky, clay soil. If the obstacles where that forbidding to a tough metal spike with some manpower behind it, what chance did tender plant roots have?

Built in 1882, the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Linnean House is the oldest continuously operating public greenhouse west of the Mississippi River and is the only remaining greenhouse at the Garden that was built during Henry Shaw’s time. Designed by noted architect George I. Barnett, the Linnean House is named in honor of Carl Linnaeus, the “father of taxonomy,” a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist who laid the foundation for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature.

A plant that grows without soil… sounds impossible, right? Not so. Air plants actually grow and thrive without soil as their leaves absorb water and airborne or waterborne nutrients. Air plants need constant air circulation to keep them happy. They also need some moisture through daily or weekly misting, depending on how dry your climate is.

With little maintenance required, these plants look great alone or in air-plant terrariums. Here’s what several local landscapers had to say about air plants.

Roses always have been special to the Missouri Botanical Garden. When first establishing the Missouri Botanical Garden, founder Henry Shaw wrote a book in 1882 dedicated to the emblem of his native England, “The Rose.” He wrote, “Human art can neither colour nor describe so fair a flower.” [Its] beauty is composed of all that is exquisite and graceful.”

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.