Red Butte Garden and Arboretum

Red Butte Garden and Arboretum sits in the foothills at the mouth of Red Butte Canyon, on the University of Utah’s east campus in Salt Lake City, immediately next to the Natural History Museum of Utah. Opened in 1985 and designated the University’s official arboretum, it covers about 100 acres: roughly 21 acres of themed gardens, including the Children’s Garden, Rose Garden, Fragrance Garden and Medicinal Garden, backed by close to 75 acres of natural area threaded with more than five miles of hiking trails. More than 3,000 species of plants and trees grow across the property, and each spring the garden’s bulb displays include roughly 590,000 bulbs planted through the themed gardens.

The property really functions as two destinations under one gate. By day it is a walking garden and a trailhead, with themed gardens near the entrance giving way to natural-area trails that climb into the foothills for valley and canyon views. In the evenings across the warmer months, the same grounds host the Amphitheatre and its Outdoor Concert Series, an open-air summer concert series known locally for the cool canyon breeze that drops in after sunset. Garden hours run shorter on concert evenings, so it is worth checking the schedule on the official site before you plan a summer visit around a show.

A walk through just the themed gardens is manageable in under two hours. Add even a short stretch of the natural-area trails and a visit can easily fill half a day. A sensible route starts in the gardens close to the visitor center, then moves out onto the trail system if you want more of a hike than a stroll. That range makes the garden work for very different visits: a quick loop with small children in the themed gardens, a longer walk on the trails, or a slow rainy-day wander that stays mostly under tree cover.

The garden sits at 300 S Wakara Wy in the university’s east foothills, a few miles from downtown Salt Lake City and directly beside the Natural History Museum of Utah, making the two easy to combine into one outing. It is reachable by UTA transit, and on weekdays during the academic year the University of Utah’s free campus shuttle stops between the museum and the garden entrance. An accessible on-site parking lot is available. The garden describes its buildings, the Amphitheatre, and many of its outdoor areas as wheelchair and stroller accessible, though the natural-area trails climb into rougher terrain than the themed gardens.

Timing changes the visit more than almost anything else here. Spring is bulb season, when the themed gardens fill with color before the trees leaf out. Summer is concert season, when the Amphitheatre’s Outdoor Concert Series draws evening crowds and the gardens themselves stay open well into the night. Fall shifts the focus back to the trails, with cooler air for the climb into the natural area, while winter is the quieter season, with shorter hours than summer. Whatever month a visit lands in, hours shift with the season, so it is worth checking the garden’s official site before you go.