SUMMER IN THE GARDEN

ST. LOUIS -- The 79-acre Missouri Botanical Garden is considered one of the top three botanical gardens in the world.

The venue includes Japanese, Chinese, German, English and Victorian gardens along with the Climatron, a geodesic dome housing a tropical rain forest. It also has a home gardening center, a resource for gardening information that includes 23 residential-scale demonstration gardens.

More than 4,000 trees live on the grounds, some of which date to the 19th century. The garden's botanists currently are conducting 25 major flora projects.

The Garden Cafe and Garden Gate Shop are open daily.

Wednesday evenings during the summer, the garden presents the Whitaker Jazz Festival. The free concerts are presented outdoors. Guests are invited to come early, stroll the grounds and bring a blanket and picnic supper. Boxed suppers are available by phoning the Garden Cafe at (314) 477-0200 to order in advance. A cash bar with sandwiches will be open during the concerts. Guests are not allowed to bring glass containers or alcoholic beverages into the garden.

The concert Wednesday will be by Quartet Tres Bien, an ensemble that began performing at Gaslight Square in St. Louis in 1960.

On July 4, the St. Louis band Swing Set will perform. The not-so-typical swing band performs renditions of everything from Frank Sinatra to Iron Butterfly.

Jazz and blues vocalist Mae Wheeler will perform July 11, the final evening of the festival.

All concerts are at 7:30 p.m.

The garden is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. every day except Christmas and is opens from 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

For 24-hour recorded information, phone (800) 642-8842.

From I-270, go east on I-44, exit at Vandeventer, turn right onto Vandeventer and left at Shaw Boulevard.