Wednesday, March 26, 2008

What's big and green?













What's big and green and is a world renowned center for trees and plant lovers? It's the Missouri Botanical Garden of course! And now it's Garden Gate Shop also carries the Eco-Libris stickers, providing shop patrons the option to plant new trees in developing countries to balance out the paper in the books they read.

The Garden’s 79 acres of splendid horticultural displays include the vibrant tropical rainforest that thrives inside the alarmingly named Climatron conservatory. The Japanese Garden in one of the largest in North America, covering 14 acres. Other displays include Chinese, English and German gardens and a Victorian District. Over 5,400 trees live on the grounds, including some rare and unusual varieties and a few stately specimens dating back to the 19th century, when Garden founder Henry Shaw planted them.

But even more exciting to us is the fact that the Garden is one of the world’s leading centers for botanical exploration, plant science and conservation. Garden botanists are active in 36 countries spanning the globe, and information is shared via the Web (
www.mobot.org) using a botanical database, developed and maintained at the Garden. With more than six million specimens, the Garden herbarium is one of the six largest in the world and one of the two largest in the United States.

The Garden Gate Shop is a great place to find plants, garden accessories, merchandise... and books on related subject. And now of course you can
plant a tree for every book you buy there, by adding the Eco-Libris sticker.

The Garden is a host to events an exhibitions. Opening on April 28th, 'Niki' is a Colorful, Playful Mosaic Sculptures by
Niki De Saint Phalle. A prolific self-taught artist, Niki created a repertoire of work that also included paintings and illustrations. She sculpted her playful, larger-than-life creations from fiberglass, stones, glass, mirrors and semi-precious materials. And here's the cool part - visitors are encouraged to touch many of them and some invite sitting or climbing!

The Missouri Botanical Garden is conveniently located off I-44, and is easily accessible from the major highways in the area.

4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63110 Automated events hotline: (314) 577-9400 - 1-800-642-8842

Yours,

Eylon @ Eco-Libris