LADYBUG: BOTANICAL GARDEN REVEALS SECRETS ON HOT DAY

If we had not visited Missouri Botanical Garden on one of the hottest, most humid days of summer (upper 90s), we would not have known a number of things about the garden in the hot summertime.

We would not have known that sundial peppermint portulaca and dwarf marine purple heliotrope could stand intense heat all day, or that mandevillas could be used in hanging baskets or that our own Dave Niswonger is the incoming president of the American Iris Society.

Although it was extremely hot and sultry, the magnitude of the well maintained gardens, the beauty of the seasonal flowers, the magnitude of the gigantic trees, which provided shade for our periodical rest periods, made it a memorable day.

Since our lifestyle of gardening has changed (after 46 years), it was of great interest to see the plants there that would take the hot Missouri sunshine all day, -- the many vincas, dusty miller, platycodon, begonias, salvia, ageratum, snapdragons, marigolds and lisianthus, and many other annuals.

Having been fascinated by mandevilla since we first saw them growing in Florida on mailboxes, trellises, and in pots, it was interesting to see them growing in the garden in hanging baskets on a crossbar on a light post. These large, pink trumpet-like flowers have rather large leaves and trailing tendrils, and like lots of heat and humidity. A native of the semi-tropics, they have been very happy the past few hot weeks.

Both my favorite brother and I have another kind of mandevilla, called Red Riding Hood (Diplendia splendens), which is a smaller, bushier plant, with smooth, shiny leaves and smaller lipstick red flowers. It also vines. His is planted in the ground while mine grows in a hanging basket. Both require lots of water, at least twice daily.

Neither is hardy here and will not winter unless it is done as a friend living in Sikeston cares for hers year to year. Before the signs of the first frost, she trims it back, leaving it in its pot, and stores it in a heated garage with plenty of light. In the spring, the mandevilla is brought out and fertilized and it soon takes off to begin vining and blooming again.

A visit to the oldest botanical garden in the country, which was opened to the public in 1859, is always a most rewarding experience regardless of the season, whether it is a featured orchid or holiday flower show, or one of the featured festivals of different countries.

Older visitors have known it for years as Shaw's Garden, after its founder Henry Shaw, who arrived in St. Louis in 1819 and spent 20 years in the hardware business. He amassed a personal fortune enabling him to retire at 40 years of age.

It was his idea to establish a botanical garden where it would be educational and provide a place for research. Shaw is buried on the garden grounds in a marble, granite and stained glass mausoleum surrounded by a towering grove of oaks. He lived from 1800 to 1890 and most likely developed the affection for plants while still a schoolboy in England that would consume his life's energies.

Shaw's ideas to establish a 79-acre botanical garden must have seemed eccentric to observers of those days. The area at that time was little more than grassy prairie lands. A trip to the garden required a bumpy, dusty, hour-long horse and carriage ride from the fashionable riverfront residences in St. Louis. Today, the location of the Missouri Botanical Garden is near the geographic center of the city.

The Climatron, which was built in 1960 under a million-dollar geodestic dome, was the first of its type in the world, containing more than 1,500 species of tropical and subtropical plants. This was our first visit since its restoration in 1990. This landscaped interior for many strange and exotic plants is contained in three-quarters of an acre in a jungle-like atmosphere of natural settings, waterfalls and pools. Here we saw bananas, papayas, coffee, hibiscus and bird of paradise blooming.

The Iris and Daylily Gardens, Japanese Garden, Kemper Center for Home Gardening, both Rose Gardens, Azalea and Rhododendron Garden, Scented Garden for the blind, English Wooden Garden and many other places were visited.

it was at the annual Iris Sale of Ridgway Center that we learned of Dave Niswonger's top position for the American Society. (The officials at the sale reported it had been a most successful one.)

~Mary Blue is a resident of Cape Girardeau and an avid gardener.