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THE WILLIAM T. KEMPER CENTER
FOR HOME GARDENING

BACKGROUND
The Kemper Center for Home Gardening is the largest non-profit gardening information center of its kind in the nation. It provides recreation, education and resources for Midwestern home gardeners. Programs are developed jointly through partnership with University of Missouri Extension.

MANAGER
Steven D. Cline, Ph.D.

STAFF
Six full-time program staff, two part-time receptionists, six full-time field horticulturists, 200 Master Gardeners and other volunteers.

LOCATION
Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd. in St. Louis, Missouri.

PURPOSE
To teach gardening skills through gardening programs and displays; to encourage more people to improve their lives and homes through the pleasures and rewards of home gardening; to better serve visitors by providing accurate and accessible information on indoor and outdoor plants for the home.

SCHEDULE
The Kemper Center pavilion is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Days.

SIZE
The Kemper Center includes an 8,000 square foot pavilion and eight acres of residential display gardens composed of 23 individual garden sites.

DISPLAY GARDENS
The 23 display gardens, which opened in 1996, include a city garden; butterfly garden; secret garden; family vegetable garden; fragrance garden; ornamental displays for landscaping, lawns, and shrubs; rock, shade and flower trial gardens; children’s garden; herb garden; garden for attracting birds; and other gardens.

PAVILION
The Kemper Center pavilion, opened in 1991, and includes a cozy living room area with a fireplace that includes tool and seed catalogs, a demonstration kitchen, a “plant doctor” desk, a gardening book reference library, a greenhouse, classroom, indoor gardening displays, a monthly gardening calendar display, and an information center and offices. It has the look and feel of a residential home.

GARDENING INFORMATION
The Center provides several ways of answering gardening questions. Master Gardeners and other volunteers are on-site to meet visitors and answer questions. In addition, anyone may call the Horticulture Answer Service, staffed by Master Gardeners and expert gardener volunteers, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to noon at (314) 577-5143. Excellent gardening information can be found online at www.gardeninghelp.org

PROGRAMS
Garden members, as well as the general public can take classes in gardening, landscape design, botanical crafts, painting, drawing, photography, nature study and cooking. The Center provides ongoing training for its volunteers and conducts a yearly Master Gardener training course.

• PLASTIC POT RECYCLING
• PLANTS OF MERIT
• YEAR-ROUND GARDENING CLASSES
• HORTICULTURE ANSWER SERVICE
• MASTER GARDENER TRAINING
  

DEMONSTRATION GARDENS

The secret garden, an intimate oasis in a secluded corner, is plotted in a semi-circular pattern of herbaceous perennials with a tall evergreen perimeter hedge. The garden centers on a life-size bronze sculpture of a cocker spaniel quizzically examining a porcupine.

The backyard garden can be entered from inside the pavilion. It provides the homeowner with a wealth of ideas and information on how to transform a typical backyard setting in an outdoor “room” that will become an extension of indoor living space. Featured in this garden are rhododendrons and azaleas, oakleaf hydrangeas, dwarf crabapple, as well other evergreen shrubs used for foundation screenery.

The Missouri native shade garden replicates an eastern Missouri woodland full of shade-loving plants below a canopy of maple and oak trees.

The family vegetable garden displays the finest fruit and vegetable varieties that can be grown in the St. Louis area. From this garden, the visitor can obtain a wide range of information and helpful hints on starting and maintaining a vegetable garden on any scale.

The experimental garden contains test plots for flowers, vegetables and fruit. While plants will be rigorously tested, horticultural techniques are also displayed and evaluated. 

The prairie garden is the first in a series of native plant gardens located on a knoll overlooking the Kemper Center pavilion. The prairie garden recreates a portion of the native prairie that once existed in Missouri.

The bird garden features plants attractive to birds, including evergreen screening to provide shelter, birdhouses and feeders, red flower borders to attract hummingbirds, shrub and perennial borders.

The fragrance garden displays some of the best fragrance plants for the St. Louis area, including fine examples of shrub and antique roses. This is a special garden that delights the senses, with its beauty and the sound of splashing water.

The butterfly meadow shows visitors how to entice butterflies to their home gardens with through the use of appropriate plantings and pools.

The butterfly pavilion continues the theme with a Japanese-inspired viewing structure made of cedar and stucco.

The Spoehrer Children’s Garden sparks curiosity and wonder about plants with striking colors, unusual forms, fragrances and textures. At the center of the garden is a shrub-bordered maze, winding around to a peacock fountain in the center. A small train chugs over a babbling brook past a miniature town and landscaping.

The garden for all is devoted to gardening for those who are physically challenged. Plants are easily accessible to all, including persons requiring walking aids and wheelchairs. Interesting and innovative ideas for the most diverse and enjoyable gardening experiences include raised beds and planters of varying heights and sizes; benches; and a tool display of digging attachments, handle extensions and modified pruners.

The city garden is an intimate, intensively landscaped setting for the enthusiastic urban gardener working in a small space, with vegetables, herbs and containers. A six-foot brick wall encloses the area.

Other gardens include the entry court, ornamental shade garden, summer plant house, flower borders, groundcover display, flower trial garden, rock garden, fruit garden, apple allée, and terrace garden.

The Missouri Botanical Garden’s mission is “to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment, in order to preserve and enrich life.” Today, 150 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science and conservation, education and horticultural display.

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