About Garden-Lou

During the Covid pandemic, a need was born; virtual tours and online meet-ups became popular, reaching more people than ever and releasing the constrictions of distance, busy schedules, or physical limitations.

As an honors art student in high school and a commercial arts major in college, Jo Batzer felt the natural path for her was in advertising or animation, but after moving out of state to a small town, she entered the floral industry. “I’ve always been drawn to anything that combined art with science. Floral design incorporated my love for plants, and the design principles learned in college, but after moving back to St. Louis, I felt horticulture was my true calling. I went back to school and graduated with a second degree in horticulture from the well-known St. Louis Community College-Meramec program.” She still keeps one foot in the door of the floral design world, with random weddings and for the past twenty-six years, doing seasonal commercial holiday installations all around St. Louis.

Jo Batzer started her professional horticulture career in 1997. After fourteen years at Missouri Botanical Garden, she took her landscape design and maintenance company full time, combining her art background, floral design experience, and horticulture degree into a recipe for creative, functional, and unique garden spaces. Her clients have been St. Louis Post Dispatch Great Garden contest winners, featured in St. Louis Homes and Lifestyles magazine, and on numerous local garden tours. The June 2022 issue of St. Louis Homes & Lifestyles featured Jo’s personal garden.

Jo was also a previous contributing garden writer for the former online magazine, NOCO. “I loved seeing so many private gardens and meeting the amazing people that created them. I’ve really wanted to get back into garden writing for years. 2020 was a hard year for everyone, gardeners included. Missouri Botanical Garden was limiting visitors, almost all the local garden tours and events were canceled. Fear overshadowed any event that did happen. Even with many restrictions lifted, some people just don’t travel around town as much as they would like.” The pandemic inspired her to launch Garden-Lou and bring local gardens and gardeners to them. What better place to do that than her hometown? “Like Tootie from the film Meet Me in St. Louis, I was lucky to be born in my favorite city!”