"At the age of eighteen, Henry Shaw (1800-1889) left his home in Sheffield, England, to import manufactured goods from St. Louis on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Two decades of financial success allowed him to relinquish his business operations and take up more genteel pursuits." "Over the next three decades, Shaw transformed his estate, Tower Grove, into one of the nation's leading botanical gardens, Laid out according to gardenesque principles, which emphasized individual specimens, the plantings came from many sources and included species newly discovered by the era's great plant hunters. Shaw's Garden (now the Missouri Botanical Garden) opened in 1859 to legions of wildly enthusiastic visitors." "Carol Grove chronicles Shaw's remarkable story, from his early love of plants to his rising social conscience and his determined quest to create a place of unsurpassed beauty and distinction that would educate and thereby improve American citizens. Beautifully illustrated with contemporary and historical photographs, this volume offers an insightful cultural history of Shaw's landscapes, among the most important examples of the gardenesque in America."--Jacket.