Don’t miss an opportunity to visit the Japanese Garden, where snow is considered a flower. In the winter, shapes and contrasts become the visual pleasures of the garden and you can even sometimes see colorful koi fish in the lake.  

The Chinese Garden is a tranquil place in the winter, provoking self-reflection and peaceful thought. It is often said that Chinese gardens are built and not planted, since little plants are used. Be sure to check out the trickling water, authentic pavilion and ancient Chinese limestone formations under a layer of snow. 

The Tower Grove House, Garden founder Henry Shaw’s restored country residence, is located in the Lichtenstein Victorian District. After an extremely successful business venture, Shaw retired and made several trips back to Europe. After his first trip, he was inspired to make St. Louis his permanent home. In 1849, he commissioned George I. Barnett, an English-born architect and friend, to design the Tower Grove House. The building is Barnett’s first design with an Italianate influence, a style popular among Americans who traveled to Europe in the Victorian era.

Situated between the Lichtenstein Victorian District and the Japanese Garden, visitors step into a shaded patch of tranquility known as the Cherbonnier English Woodland Garden. Beneath a canopy of trees, more than 300 rhododendrons and azaleas and 100 dogwoods burst into bloom each spring, while clusters of wildflowers, hydrangeas and perennials provide surprising splashes of color against the background music of a babbling brook. The garden peaks around the second week of April, when the dogwoods, wildflowers and other spring blooms are out.

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.