Red Butte Garden

Themed Gardens

• Children’s Garden

  The Children’s Garden offers a kid-friendly — and parent-approved — place to explore, picnic and play. The splash pad is a big hit, as is the grapevine-covered “snake” tunnel. Bright-hued flowers such as penstemon, Indian paintbrush and sunflowers grow at children’s eye level. Parents and older kids can use the TaleBlazer app (which uses the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s TaleBlazer software) to play games based on GPS-enabled input gathered from the garden.

• Fragrance Garden

  The pathways of the Fragrance Garden meander through bridges, fountains and full-sun flower beds bursting with colorful and fragrant wildflowers, such as lavender, yarrow, salvia and sage. The same paths also provide a sensational aisle for wedding ceremonies. As guests look on, couples join each other in the shade beneath the Fragrance Garden’s grand wisteria-covered pergola, before the entire party heads inside to the Orangerie for the reception.

• Medicinal Garden

  Hippocrates once said, “Nature itself is the best physician.” Red Butte Garden’s Medicinal Garden highlights plants with medicinal properties like Pot Marigold (Calendula officilalis) and Sage (Salvia officinalis), alongside yearly themes like emotional and mental wellness, forest medicine and cancer-fighting flora.

• Water Conservation Garden

  As one of the newer additions to Red Butte Garden, the Water Conservation Garden lives up to its name. The tiered garden grows native Utah plants including Spider Milkweed, Sea Kale (Crambe maritima), Princess Victoria Louise Poppy, Aunt Dee Wisteria, Showy Beardtongue (Penstemon cobaea) and Blue Satin Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus 'Blue Satin). These varieties thrive in dry climates, cold winters and alkaline soil, and are grouped together according to their water needs for even more impact on conserving water.