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Red Butte Garden Arbor Day celebration

Do you love trees? So do we. Join your fellow dendrophiles (yes—there’s a word for us!) at Red Butte Garden and Arboretum on Arbor Day, Friday, April 26, to learn about the vital role trees play in our lives and environment

Admission is free thanks to Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts & Parks. (Admission is always free for U staff and students with valid UCard.) The event is sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and Hank and Diane Louis. Details at redbuttegarden.org.

Discover how trees help both human and plant communities thrive, from improving air quality to conserving water. Learn how to help your own trees live longer, happier lives. Search for some of the Garden’s favorites on a tree hunt, learn the parts of a tree, and enter our Tree Selfie contest to win a family membership and cool Garden swag. Better yet, take home a tree seedling to plant in your yard while supplies last.

From 10 am to 1 pm join the Consulate of Mexico in Salt Lake City in the Four Seasons Courtyard for a “Tree of Life” children’s activity led by local artist Vicente Martinez. Kids are invited to express their thoughts about trees and childhood through drawings and then display them on a tree sculpture to symbolize unity with nature. This activity aims to foster empathy, appreciation for cultural heritage, and celebration of Arbor Day, bringing Mexican and Latino families together for a day of creativity and connection.

Cultivating, caring for, and sharing our love for trees is a year-round passion at Red Butte Garden. The University of Utah’s campus landscape is a State Arboretum, and as part of it, the Garden is one of the best places in the Salt Lake Valley to explore the beauty, variety, and life-giving benefits of trees. The Garden is home to about 2,000 trees in 456 different taxa, including a historic collection of Cottam’s Oak hybrids, and a nationally recognized collection of conifers. By cultivating so many unique trees over its nearly forty-year history, Red Butte Garden is helping to increase the biodiversity of the valley’s tree canopy. Increasing biodiversity helps make the community more resilient to climate change and other ecosystem stressors.