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Indestructible Houseplants

When it’s cold outside, many people shift their gardening aspirations from beautiful backyards to maintaining lovely houseplants. But if you aren’t gifted with a green thumb, you may find houseplants more frustrating than fulfilling. Don’t worry! The Kemper Center for Home Gardening has you covered. Below are the staff’s top recommendations for indestructible houseplants, sure…

Sipping on Gin and Juniper

The addition of juniper was by design, and perhaps good marketing because it had long been revered for its medicinal properties.

Recycle Responsibly

An Update You Can Use from the EarthWays Center of the Missouri Botanical Garden Many of us recycle—a good habit that keeps getting better. But while recycling is geared to handle a wide range of materials, your recycling bin is not a catch-all. The Garden’s EarthWays Center joins with OneSTL recycling partners all over St….

When to Prune Your Hydrangeas

As you’re winding down gardening during the colder weather, it’s a great time to think about pruning your plants. Knowing exactly when to prune plants can be tricky, and varies plant by plant, prompting many questions for home gardeners. Specifically, many want to know if winter is the best time to prune hydrangeas, or if…

Spotlight on Science: Dr. Aaron Floden

Dr. Aaron Floden Assistant Scientist, Flora of Missouri When Aaron Floden first started collecting plants, he purposefully chose a geographic area with low collection numbers. In fact, the 498 square mile area only had about 300 documented species. By the time Floden finished, that number surpassed 1,500 species, including seven species not previously known to…

The Garden and the Great War

2018 marks 100 years since the end of World War I. Although far away from the battlefields of Europe, the Missouri Botanical Garden was not immune to the ripple effects of this great conflict. The Garden Gets Involved More than a dozen people associated with the Garden were called to serve after the United States…

Plant Profile: Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of annual herbs in the Cannabaceae family, which also includes hops.

Winter Checklist for Your Garden

As the temperatures fall outside and winter is on the horizon, it’s time to make sure your garden is ready for a frosty winter. There are of course the major tasks, like bringing your houseplants inside, but don’t forget the smaller tasks that are important for your garden’s health, too. To help, the staff from…

Butterflies Need Trees Too

Autumn is the perfect time to celebrate Tree Week. We encourage you to not only take a stroll and enjoy the fall colors, but also take a moment to think about all the life these trees support. Among those branches are thousands of different invertebrates, including centipedes and beetles, cocoons and chrysalises. Some trees are…

It’s Complicated: Trees and Ecological Restoration

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now. -Anonymous Addendum: That is, unless the tree will grow just fine without your help or the tree doesn’t really belong there. In that case, the best time might be never. Planting a tree is rejuvenating. It gets you…

Botany by Drone Takes Off at Shaw Nature Reserve

Picture in your mind a researcher in the field conducting a tree survey. Likely you imaged a trained botanist deep in a forest or jungle, swatting away insects and wiping sweat out of their eyes while keying out an unknown specimen with a hand lens, clipboard, taxonomic field guide, and a rucksack of supplies at…

From the Library: Rare Book Discovery

Death, be not proud . . . No man is an island . . . And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Sound familiar? These phrases all come from the pen of John Donne (1572-1631), an influential English poet whom some of you may remember from your…