The Jefferson City Botanical Garden Master Plan proposes a vision for a new Botanical Garden – a regionally significant educational landscape in the heart of Missouri’s capitol city. Spearheaded by the Jefferson City Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry and members of the Central Missouri Master Gardeners, the vision proposes a new  destination landscape highlighting Missouri ecologies as well as cultural and productive landscapes all within an impressive location along the hillsides and ridges of the Missouri River bluffs. 

The JCBG design is defined by two axes. Along the topographically diverse north-south axis visitors enter a garden sequence that reflects major native Missouri landscapes: wetland, glade, prairie, savanna, forest and river edge.

The second east-west axis focuses on productive landscapes of Missouri, including agricultural, edible, foraging, and urban forestry spaces. The linchpin at the center of both axes is an area of more intensely cultivated and ornamental landscapes.  

The design of circulation of the Botanical Garden includes a network of larger primary and a finer network of winding secondary paths including trails within the woodland area, as well as a series of elegant  and unique gathering nodes, and a few new large scale “anchors” create a diverse and activated collection of experiences for respite, gathering, and learning across the garden. Arbolope has been engaged to provide design services over the life of the project, and  design of Phase 1 is ongoing.