Often one of the first bloomers of the season, pansies are the perfect annual to plant for bright spring color. SLHL asked local landscapers to share their favorite variety of pansy.

Take a walk with Deb Hollingsworth at the Missouri Botanical Garden on a cold blustery day, and you will quickly warm to her enthusiasm for the bare landscape. Hollingsworth, a member of the Garden’s Corporate Council, is quick to point out the stark beauty of the season. “I love how the ice and snow frame everything in a different way,” she says. “I think the trees are the most beautiful at this time of year because you see the structure and bark features.

Late winter in the United States is actually harvest time in countries below the Equator. So, it should be no surprise that South Australian winemaker Kim Jackson is spending nearly every waking hour now in the vineyards of the two high-quality wineries for which she works – Shirvington in McLaren Vale and Henry’s Drive in Padthaway. Unless you knew her before she found her life’s work...

The style, modern bohemian, if you need a label, is a youthful motif straight out of Domino magazine. Designer Kimberly Kowalski of Savvy Surrounding Style, owned by homeowner Chrissy Fogerty’s mother, has handled the entire Fogerty family’s décor, and offers, “They’re all different with their own unique personalities.” The pictures Fogerty approached Kowalski with for her Central West End condo were “all over the place,” Kowalski says, pointing to an unprecedented mix of periods, colors and textures.

What started out as an unexpected disaster quickly turned into an opportunity for change when Town and Country homeowners discovered a crack in their basement floor. Foundation issues that needed immediate attention pushed them to redo their lower level, turning it into the space they had always dreamed of.

After building their home in 2006, the couple thought they had built the perfect basement. It had a bar, a gym and a place for guests, but after several years in the home, they found they never used the space and, honestly, just did not like it.

“She looks just like Katie Hendricks! You know the 8th grader.” A doe-eyed teen holding a school worksheet pulls out her iPhone to snap a photo of a 1970 Mel Ramos painting of Jane Fonda.

“Yeah...I guess.” Her field-trip partner turns her head to see the piece from another angle. She frowns. “But I think she’s famous or something. She wouldn’t be in a painting like that unless she was popular.”