This area includes a native perennial garden, rock garden, prairie garden, water garden, woodland garden, rain garden, patio garden, and ground cover garden.

The plants in these garden demonstrations are native to Missouri and are useful for home gardening and small outdoor school classrooms. They are available from local nurseries and mail-order catalogs.

Native plants are excellent, low-maintenance choices for home gardening because they are adapted to local conditions. They also provide habitat and food for hundreds of species of native insects, birds, and mammals.

This small garden is essentially a pile of crushed limestone and boulders with a small amount of organic matter and clay mixed in. The plants growing here come from natural limestone glades, rocky dry areas with shallow soil and few trees.

Native Missouri groundcovers are showcased between the home landscaping shelter and the patio garden.  This area gives the home landscaper alternatives to the traditional non-native, and often invasive, groundcovers. Native suckering sedges will also have an important place in the groundcover garden in addition some taller species.

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Rain gardens function like miniature natural watersheds. They slow down, capture and absorb water rather than let it quickly run away, causing erosion. This design was created based on the original topography to collect rain water from nearby buildings and provide a beautiful setting for an outdoor patio.

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The patio garden is located next to the Carriage house providing a beautiful outdoor classroom and meeting area. Species used around the patio are drought tolerant so as to need a minimum amount of watering. Several container gardens are also displayed on the patio showcasing a variety of beautiful arrangements. Between the patio and rain garden a variety of sedges grow on the hillside.

Bascom House

One of the original buildings on the site, the Bascom House built in 1879, was restored in 1996. The mansion houses an array of exhibits which illustrate the interaction between humans and the land in eastern Missouri over the last 12,000 years.

The Bascom House is open to the public daily from 10 am to 4 pm except holidays.

More details on the Bascom House

Upper Woodland

Mature white, post, and chinquapin oaks are the dominant tree species in this open woodland. Beneath these trees, mowed lawn has been killed and replanted with native upland shade-loving species like black Cohosh Cimicifuga racemosa, elm-leaved goldenrod Solidago ulmifolia, American bellflower Campanula americana, Ohio horsemint Blephilia ciliata , and spreading aster Aster patens. During the first two years of establishment, these areas are weeded, mulched, and watered similarly to any other garden but by year three very little weeding and watering is needed. 

Plant List

Limestone Glade

Limestone Glades are outcroppings of limestone on hot, sunny slopes and are common throughout the Ozarks.  Many showy plants like Indian paintbrush, pale purple coneflower, and blue false indigo are tolerant of these harsh conditions and are growing here.

Pine Savanna

Shortleaf pine is native throughout the Ozark Region in Missouri and as far north as the La Barque Hills area of Eureka, Missouri. It typically is associated with sandstone outcrops and various acid-loving plants like blueberries, mountain azalea, and legumes like leadplant Amorpha canescens, goats rue Tephrosia virginiana, and cream wild indigo Baptisia bracteata. 

Spring Pool

This area in the wildflower garden is a demonstration of a spring-fed pool. It is planted at the edges with many wet-loving plants like royal Osmunda regalis and sensitive ferns Onoclea sensibilus, several sedge species Carex spp., cardinal flower Lobelia cardinalis, soft rush Juncus effusus, and pickerel weed Pontederia cordata. Water lilies Nymphaea odorata are planted in containers which sit on the floor of this concrete pool.

Sedge Meadow

Sedge Meadows occur naturally in wet prairies, spring areas, and river flood plains. They support a rich array of plants like queen-of-the-prairie, turtlehead, blue-flag iris and about 140 species of sedges in Missouri, some of which are growing in this area.

Plant List

Persimmon Grove

Though we do not know the history of this persimmon grove, it appears to be planted with several varieties of native persimmon. Some varieties bare large fruits and some are small. Some ripen in early September, some in October, and even one that ripens in late November. The fruits are edible raw or cooked and are often used in muffin, pancake, and bread recipes.

More info about creating your own prairie garden is available in our Native Landscaping Manual

Tallgrass Prairie

A  variety of grasses, including big bluestem, switch and Indian grass, and forbs (prairie wildflowers) like coneflowers and compass plant are typical of prairies and are in peak display in July and August. Tallgrass prairie once covered millions of square miles and comprised about 40% of Missouri. The prairie area here is about 10 acres and is managed by fire during winter.

plant list

Woodland Area

Woodland wildflowers bloom mostly in early spring before trees leaf out. At that time of year you will see masses of virginia bluebells, wood poppies, blood root, wild geranium, ferns and many other beautiful woodland plants.

Plant List

Related article:

Spring in the Woodland Garden, April 2008 Gateway Gardener

Wetlands

This small constructed wetland was a cattle pond in the early 1900’s. In 2002 it was enlarged, repaired, and seeded with a diverse selection of wetland plants. It has several species of sedge, rush, and bulrush, and also rose mallow, autumn sneezeweed, swamp milkweed, and false aster to name a few. This area is home to a host of dragonflies, frogs, salamanders, and birds.