We recently stopped at the IKEA store in St Louis. I hadn't been there before, although Randy was present for their grand-opening a year ago since he was on the design team.
We weren't looking for anything special, but had fun poking around a bit in the store and also had delicious Sweedish meatballs for lunch in their cafeteria. By the way, the lunch platter was very full with a healthy serving of meat and gravy, mashed potatoes and a vegetable blend (all for $5). There are several offerings on the menu, but we wanted to try the meatballs for which they're so famous. They're also known for their large cinnamon rolls, so we brought home a package of those.
I particularly enjoyed looking around outside and seeing the grounds since I'm married to the landscape architect who designed it. It was all lovely, but I was drawn to the bio-retention basins so didn't take pictures of the other areas. There are no storm sewers on the property so water drains to several of these bio-retention basins throughout the site. These areas require very specific plant material which help to filter sediment, debris and oil, thereby allowing clean rainwater to return to the water table. (As a sidebar I will say that Randy is talented at designing such features and, in fact, his work has been recognized and highlighted in seminars hosted by Metropolitan Sewer District.) For this IKEA location, he incorporated plants that serve as pollinators for butterflies and bees and I am showing just two examples.
The rose mallow is at the end of its bloom season, but there were a few remaining flowers.
The stands of milkweed are impressive and were thick with monarchs. As you know, this plant is crucial to the survival of monarchs and seeing the winged beauties in abundance today made me happy.
Have you shopped at IKEA? If so, what did you buy?