Posts in Nature
Secrets of the East Side: Full Circle Healing Garden

Not far from the beautiful grove of Magnolia trees we focused on in a previous blog post, you can find the Full Circle Healing Garden.

The Full Circle Healing Garden was established in 2001 and is a 6000-square foot space located just east of the Steinberg Skating Rink parking lot. But this is no ordinary garden. Formerly turfgrass, this area is now truer to its roots with around 25 species of plants native to Missouri. The idea for the Healing Garden originated with Gary Skolnick (a Senior Statistical Data Analyst at Washington University School of Medicine), who witnessed the vibrancy of places like the Kennedy Savanna (on the west side of Forest Park) and was inspired to make a change. 

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Restoring a Natural Icon With the Help of Americorps' St. Louis Emergency Response Team

Forest Park's John F. Kennedy Memorial Forest is a unique example of forest habitat that sits in the center of a city environment. Sections of Kennedy Forest are old-growth, dating back to well before the outer limits of the city of St. Louis even made it to the land on which Forest Park now sits. The Kennedy Forest Restoration Project, made possible by a lead gift from the Mysun Charitable Foundation, is an ambitious one-year restoration plan focused on revitalizing a 10-acre portion of the forest. The project is led by Forest Park Forever, in partnership with the City of St. Louis and with considerable help from Americorps' St. Louis Emergency Response Team. 

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Finding Ourselves at Home: My Journey Back to Forest Park — and What You Will See This Spring

I remember as a child looking forward to going to the Muny each summer in Forest Park. Children like routine, and each seven-show season with Grandma Dorothy, my mother and my sister was just that: dependable. Whether we were strolling through the gardens of the newly renovated Pagoda Circle, eating dinner beside the Cascades, driving past the lit-up Emerson Grand Basin fountains or walking beneath towering cottonwood trees, Forest Park was always a place where I felt at home; a place where people and nature met together in harmony. But as time goes by, we become adults — we experience the death of loved ones, birth and new life, and we travel away from where we grew up. We begin to realize how unpredictable life truly is, and how special ....

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More to Explore: Deer Lake Savanna

The goal of this new blog series is to introduce readers to the various “hidden gems” that exist, at least in my mind, throughout Forest Park. Many of Forest Park’s estimated 13 million annual visitors are repeat users of the Park and a number of them visit regularly, even daily. Still, with a park of this size — 1,370 acres — it is difficult to see everything there is to offer. Every day brings new events and activities to the Park, and every season brings new changes to the park. The continued efforts to improve the Park for users also brings new facilities, new sights and sounds, and new areas to explore. This series is meant to explore ....

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