St. Louis, Missouri.

This week, Amy asks us to take a walk, a photo walk. She writes, “You are invited to share your photo walk, whether park, beach or street.” You can read her challenge post here.

In my travels to new places (for me), I’ve often looked for the local botanical garden to see some of the area’s natural plants and get a feel for the local habitat. That walk through the garden always presents itself with plenty of photo opportunities. For this post, I will share one of my favorite garden visits, a walk through the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Visit at the right time of year and you will be rewarded with many flowers to select and focus upon. This is one of my favorites, a profile of a lily. No matter what season you visit, though, there will always be something worth seeing at the gardens.

The Linnean House features plants that are not suitable for the natural climate of the region around St. Louis. It is the oldest public greenhouse that is still in operation. Originally it was built to house citrus trees in pots that were brought inside for the winter, but over the years, its purpose has changed to house a wider variety of plants.

During our visit, the greenhouse contained succulents and other desert plants. It brought us a reminder of our winter home in Arizona.

On our walk, leaving the Linnean Building, we meandered through the rose garden where a wide variety of roses attracted our attention.

We soon found a Victorian Garden complete with brick walkways and a statue. The geometric planting areas invited us to sit a spell and enjoy the view.

This garden is one of the biggest botanical gardens we have visited. I have many more images that I could share, but I will leave you with this view of a gazebo where we spent some time just enjoying the sights and smells of this beautiful garden. If you would like a more complete tour of this garden, visit my original post here.

Thanks again to Amy for suggesting we take a photo walk. It reminded me that this year, we have missed our visits to botanical gardens in our travels.

John Steiner