One more place to enjoy near Salt Lake City in Utah
Red Butte Garden is a 100-acre botanical garden and arboretum nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch Range on the eastern edge of Salt Lake City. Located on the University of Utah campus, this stunning garden features over 21 acres of developed gardens and five miles of hiking trails through native oak woodlands and natural terrain. The garden serves as both a public attraction and a research facility, offering visitors an immersive experience with diverse plant collections, seasonal displays, and breathtaking views of the Salt Lake Valley. With over 200,000 annual visitors, Red Butte Garden is the largest botanical garden in the Intermountain West and serves as Utah’s official state botanical garden.
Adjacent to the Natural History Museum of Utah, Red Butte Garden creates a combined cultural and natural destination within the university’s Research Park area. The garden’s elevation provides a cooler microclimate than the valley floor below, allowing cultivation of plant species that thrive in the mountain foothills. Visitors can explore formal gardens, natural landscapes, and event spaces that host concerts, classes, and community gatherings throughout the year. The garden is recognized as a National Recreation Trail for its network of pathways that connect visitors to diverse ecosystems and stunning mountain vistas.
History and Culture
Red Butte Garden was established in 1985 through a partnership between the University of Utah and a dedicated group of horticultural visionaries who recognized the need for a public botanical institution in Utah. The garden takes its name from Red Butte Creek, which flows through the property and has carved a natural canyon through the Wasatch foothills over millennia. Before European settlement, the area served as a gathering place for indigenous peoples, including the Shoshone and Ute tribes, who used the creek’s waters and surrounding plants for sustenance and medicine.
The garden’s development transformed a former military training site into a living museum of plants and ecosystems. Dr. Richard Hildreth, the garden’s founding director, championed the vision of creating Utah’s state botanical garden that would connect the public with horticulture and environmental education. In 2000, the garden completed its Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre, a 3,000-seat outdoor venue that established the garden as Salt Lake City’s premier summer concert destination. Today the garden partners with the university to advance plant conservation research while serving as a cultural hub for the Wasatch Front community that draws visitors from across the state and beyond.
What to See
The Fragrance Garden delights visitors with aromatic herbs and flowers specifically chosen for their sensory appeal, featuring lavender, rosemary, and sweet-scented roses that invite close inspection. The Water Conservation Garden showcases drought-tolerant plants native to the Intermountain West, demonstrating how beautiful landscapes can thrive with minimal irrigation in the region’s arid climate. The Medicinal Garden displays plants used in traditional and modern medicine, from echinacea to willow bark, with interpretive signs explaining their historical and contemporary healing properties.
Spring brings spectacular displays of daffodils and tulips, with over 450,000 bulbs blooming in waves of color across the formal terraces and meadow gardens. The Four Seasons Garden offers year-round visual interest with plants carefully selected for seasonal appeal, from early spring crocuses to winter’s striking textures of bark, berries, and dried seed heads. The Orangerie conservatory houses tropical and subtropical plants in a glass-enclosed space, including citrus trees, orchids, and seasonal floral exhibitions. The Herb Garden features culinary and aromatic plants arranged in elegant geometric patterns with raised beds that make the plantings accessible for brushing, smelling, and photographing.
What to Do
Visitors to Red Butte Garden can explore five miles of walking trails that wind through themed gardens, natural areas, and scenic overlooks with panoramic views of the Salt Lake Valley and the Great Salt Lake beyond. The garden hosts its celebrated Outdoor Concert Series each summer, bringing nationally touring musicians to the hillside amphitheater for unforgettable performances under the stars. Families enjoy the Children’s Garden, an interactive space where kids can dig in the dirt, splash in Snake Creek, and learn about plants through hands-on discovery stations and a living willow maze.
Guided tours led by knowledgeable docents offer deep insights into the garden’s diverse collections, sustainable gardening practices, and seasonal highlights throughout the year. Photography enthusiasts find endless inspiration in the Rose Garden, which features over 800 rose varieties in bloom from June through September. Bird watchers can spot numerous species along the trail system, including scrub jays, hummingbirds, and raptors soaring on the foothill thermals. The garden also offers yoga classes on the amphitheater lawn, botanical art workshops, and seasonal events like bulb planting days and harvest festivals that engage the whole family.
Outdoor Recreation
Red Butte Garden serves as a gateway to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, a popular hiking and biking path that traces the ancient shoreline of Lake Bonneville along the foothills above Salt Lake City. From the garden’s upper perimeter, hikers can connect directly into Red Butte Canyon, a protected research area with rugged terrain offering challenging climbs and rewarding vistas of the valley below. The garden’s Natural Area preserves 85 acres of oak woodlands, mountain mahogany thickets, and wildflower meadows with trails that allow visitors to experience Utah’s indigenous landscape in its preserved state.
During winter months, the garden provides access to snowshoeing routes that meander through quiet, snow-covered paths beneath frosted branches and dormant gardens. The garden’s horticulture programs include workshops on native plant cultivation, water-wise gardening, and habitat creation that empower visitors to apply sustainable practices in their own landscapes. The flat, accessible pathways make the garden suitable for visitors of all ages and mobility levels, providing a gentle outdoor experience with stunning mountain scenery.
Attractions
The Amphitheatre Garden surrounds the outdoor concert venue with tiered terraces of flowering perennials and ornamental grasses that blend the performance space seamlessly into the natural hillside. The Courtyard Garden near the visitor center provides a serene arrival experience with fountains, shade trees, and seasonal container plantings that rotate throughout the year. The Desert Collection showcases cacti, agaves, and succulents from arid regions around the world, thriving in the garden’s sunniest and best-drained location on a south-facing slope.
The Wedding Garden provides a romantic setting for ceremonies, with flowering arbors, terraced lawns, and dramatic mountain backdrops that make it one of the most popular wedding venues in Utah. The Wildflower Meadow reaches peak beauty in mid-summer when native penstemons, columbines, and coneflowers create a tapestry of color that attracts butterflies and hummingbirds. The Dumke House, a historic cottage on the property, serves as a charming gathering space for garden events and educational programs. The Patio Garden near the gift shop features demonstration containers and small-space gardening ideas that inspire visitors to bring botanical beauty into their own homes.
When to Visit
Red Butte Garden offers distinct experiences in every season, with spring delivering the most spectacular displays as 450,000 bulbs burst into bloom alongside flowering magnolias, cherries, and crabapples in April and May. Summer brings the garden’s famous Outdoor Concert Series, extended evening hours until 9 PM on concert nights, and a riot of color from roses, daylilies, and perennial borders at their peak from June through August. Garden members gain early access to concert ticket sales and discounted admission throughout the year.
Fall transforms the garden with brilliant foliage from maples, oaks, and aspens, while cooler temperatures make hiking the natural area trails especially pleasant from September through October. The autumn harvest season features pumpkin displays, seasonal plant sales, and golden grasses catching the low-angle sunlight across the natural area hillsides. Winter reveals the garden’s architectural structure, with snow-dusted evergreens, ornamental seed heads, and the quiet beauty of the dormant landscape that photographers treasure. The garden is open year-round, closing only on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, with reduced admission for University of Utah students and free entry for garden members.