Soak up the sunny summer weather in outdoor lounge furniture that is stylish and comfortable.

Millbrook chaise, available at Ethan Allen.

Beautiful, practical and easy to change positions as the sun moves across the sky, available at LuLu Belles Fabrics.

Luna lounger, by Gloster, available at KDR Designer Showrooms.

Dot your landscape with potted plants and flowers in beautiful planters. Colorful and decorative, planters add an extra touch of style to your yard.

one: Versatile wide opening planter, available at Greenscape Gardens and Gifts.

two: Colorful ceramic planter, available at SummerWinds Nursery.

three: Blue scalloped top planter, available at Sugar Creek Gardens.

Take one step inside the Gifted Gardener and you will be surrounded by inspiration for both your home and your garden. Jim Heeter, owner, will help you fall in love with your garden all over again with products and accessories to create a well-done space. From fountains and pots to garden adornments, the Gifted Gardener has everything you need to create the perfect outdoor oasis.

Brothers Milt and Brian Ciskowskis' trajectory toward their current calling has had as many twists and turns as one of their many manipulated trees. The two started their careers on their grandfather’s farm, where they raised cattle and helped in the florist shop he founded on Cass Avenue in 1910. They eventually moved the shop and greenhouse to North St. Louis, closing up and re-emerging as Cass Bonsai Gardens at 6145 Quercus Grove Road in rural Edwardsville, IL, in 1998.

Bar Les Frères was never supposed to be a restaurant. When Zoë Robinson opened the Paris-inspired bar on Wydown in Clayton in 2012, she really only envisioned it as a cozy waiting area for patrons itching to get into her popular Italian restaurant, I Fratellini, across the street. But the bid for a liquor license required food, and Robinson is not one to do food halfway.

In discussing elements of mid-century modern design, one will likely encounter an amalgam of descriptions most throw around aimlessly. It’s classic, it’s organic, it’s simple, boring, strange, retro, disposable, on and on and on with a wealth of others depending on who’s doing the describing and how many cocktails are involved. Certainly it’s been all of those things, for better or for worse. But occasionally one approaches examples that are anything but aimless, which embrace a concept mid-century modern embodied at its very best: mindfulness.