After being closed for a year due to the pandemic, the Doris I. Schnuck Children’s Garden had recently reopened when I visited Missouri Botanical Garden earlier this month, and the kids were clearly loving it. The splash pad was the hot spot, with water jets popping up vertically and spraying from above.

Dubbed “A Missouri Adventure,” the nearly 2-acre garden leans into 1800s settler imagery, with props and play spaces reminiscent of Disney’s Frontierland. That’s a compliment. Even without a kid to give me an excuse, I enjoyed exploring every bit of the place.

You enter the garden at its highest point, where four diverging paths offer options: settler’s path, botanist’s path, adventurer’s path, and discoverer’s path. I chose the botanist’s path (of course), an elevated boardwalk into the treetops.

It leads to a treehouse-style pavilion…

…with a tree trunk slide into a shady woodland garden of mostly native Missouri plants.

Later I took the discoverer’s path…

…along a bouncing swinging bridge.

I left the adventurer’s path — a long, curving slide — to the kids, although there are stairs for the less adventurous to follow. The glass dome in the background is the Climatron, a tropical conservatory.

At ground level, an old riverboat called The Pearl evokes the Missouri-based stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. A waterwheel turns on the far side.

I imagine children pretending to captain the boat through the stream flowing here. But the kids that day were at the water’s edge, playing with a system of locks and dams.

Near the splash pad, a general store and surveyor’s office offer an opportunity for pretend play. The hanging baskets here are impressive too.

Behind a town hall building, a vegetable garden grows in raised beds and trough containers.

A treehouse perched atop a faux tree looks like an amazing hideaway.

It overlooks a pollination garden, where a giant bee skep and oversized flowers let you pretend to be bee-sized yourself.

Nesting materials for insects are displayed in an innovative way.

And pretty flowering plants grow throughout. I think this is threadleaf coreopsis.

There are also climbing boulders, a cave, a secret garden, an outdoor classroom, an Osage camp with costumes for kids to try on, and hideaways throughout. What a fun place for St. Louis children and visitors of all ages to enjoy!

This ends my 5-part series about Missouri Botanical Garden. I hope you’ve enjoyed the virtual tour! For a look back at the inspirational Center for Home Gardening, the Boxwood Garden, and the splendid Chinese Garden, click here.

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Digging Deeper

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