We stopped in St. Louis on our way home from a family wedding this weekend and spent an overcast afternoon at the Missouri Botanical Garden. If you are into plants and ever find yourself in St. Louis, go. Go to the botanical garden.

The beds burst with blooms and lush foliage. There are prairie beds, an orangery, lily pads so large you could lay down on them. There are lilies galore – large swaths of them in brilliant colors and frilly edges — and roses to bury your nose. The entire grounds are a work of art. I stopped every few steps to take photographs.

I am tempted to say the Japanese garden was my favorite. There were lotuses! And they were blooming! And the stroll around the pond was so peaceful, with the bamboo drip fountains and the raked gravel and an artful beach of smooth black stones. But then I remember the prairie beds at the entrance, filled with coneflowers, sages, and brown-eyed Susans, or I think of the bulb garden with more than 1200 varieties of bulbs: the fuschia-throated trumpets of lilies, the spires of gladiolas. Or I remember the bonkers lily pads that look like they’re from an alien planet, or the humidity-loving orchids in the orangery and the conservatory. It’s all amazing. All of it.