What its like to garden in St Louis

Galanthus Snowdrops

I was lucky enough to take a trip down to St Louis earlier this week with my mom and one of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Missouri Botanical Garden. I've never been to St Louis prior to this trip but I've always wanted to go. They are located a full gardening zone warmer then Des Moines and it showed. They had no snow, I would not say it was warm while we were there, but while Iowa was getting a snowstorm and it was heavy rain with a temperature round 43.F at 10pm at night at the same time in St Louis. The 40s t didn't last though, temperatures cooled to the upper 20s by the next morning and remained that way the rest of the time we were there. Not many flowers to be found but I did see Snowdrops in flower and plenty of Daffodils coming up, it was nice to see them again but I did have the same thing including blooming snowdrops in my garden in Iowa and still do to this day, but they are a foot and a half under snow.

Southern Magnolia

American Holly

Their warm climate offers them an abundance of board leaf evergreens options. They had very nice Southern Magnolias that my sad little tree in Des Moines would be jealous of. The Evergreen Hollies, Rhododendrons and Azaleas covered the grounds there. I would guess spring must be an amazing site to see at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Camellia Flower

Camellias are hardy in St Louis! I have not see a Camellia in the ground since I was in Alabama visiting family in my childhood.  I was really surprised they would be hardy as far north as St Louis. I read about this variety called 'Spring Promise' and it is apparently a newer release of Camellia that is supposed to be super-extra hardy. However it didn't sound like they do well if the temperature falls below zero and since that has happened here in Des Moines every year in recorded history except for one, I don't think I will be trying to plant one any time soon. They had Camellias in flower inside of a building that was slightly headed allowing them to have quite a few more they they otherwise normally would. Their scent is wonderful, I sure wish we could grow some of these in Iowa!

Witch Hazel Chinese

Rhododendron Garden 

Large Leaf Rhododendrons were stunning there in size. There leaves remain evergreen all winter but there are actually several varieties of these that easily thrive here in Iowa so I don't feel as bad. I've been reading about some that were bread in Finland and are supposed to be very flower-bud hardy to -30 that I want to try next year. Chinese Witch Hazel was in flower which I was really surprised about I heard they are winter bloomers but I didn't think that meant January. They of course had a nice fragrance.

Return to Des Moines 1/25/19

Iowa certainly reminded me of its farther north latitude when we arrived back home. We were welcomed with blowing snow and temperatures in the single digits. Now only this but it had snowed another 6 inches which is the 3rd time we've gotten a big snow in the last week and half. We have around 15" of on the ground now making it the most snow I've seen on the ground at once, at least here in Iowa anyway. It reminds me of the typical snowcovers found where I grew up in northern Wisconsin.