Hands-on learning at USU Botanical Center

The Utah State University Botanical Center, located in Kaysville, is committed to providing the community with practical education in gardening and landscaping.

The center uses teaching gardens, demonstration gardens and landscape and irrigation demonstration areas to teach conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

Michael Kilcrease is the property manager of the center who oversees day-to-day operations.

“We have several demonstration gardens, those are intended for and used for community teaching, as well as being utilized by continuing education and county extension services,” Kilcrease wrote in an email to The Utah Statesman. “We offer a variety of classes, including irrigation, landscape design, cut flower, fruit tree and small fruit pruning and care, and park strip demo ‘flip your strip’ type classes.”

The center also teaches using its edible garden, a hands-on classroom home to numerous apple, peach, grape, berry and vegetable varieties.

“We conduct classes in them to show them how to prune, how to plant and how to harvest,” said Jerry Goodspeed, director of the center. “Then in the late summer and fall, we have taste testing days where people can come and taste the different fruits and vegetables to see if there’s something that they might want to plant on their own.”

The center utilizes their arboretum with 500 tree species by focusing on water-wise trees to give community members ideas for their own landscaping. 

“That’s the educational side,” Goodspeed said. “To show people what they can grow in their yards or backyards or wherever they want to.” 

USU’s botanical garden was originally founded in Farmington in the 1940s. In 1994, the Utah Department of Transportation bought out the land, so USU relocated to what is now the Kaysville center. 

The property spans 100 acres, including 20 acres of wetlands. The land consisted of only a few buildings until 2008 when the arboretum was built, which now spans 8 acres.

“From then on, we’ve just continued to grow and create more gardens, more learning spaces ­— those types of things,” Goodspeed said.

As the seasons change, so does day-to-day life at the center. 

“Seasons are obviously drastically different, from when we start our shifts in the mornings to try to beat the heat, to showing up early to clear snow before the offices on site open for the day,” Kilcrease wrote.

In addition to classes and demonstrations, the center also hosts seasonal events. In the winter, they utilize their indoor arena to host Reindeer Express on Dec. 14, a holiday event with hands-on activities for families. Volunteers from the USU veterinary program come to help out.

In the spring, the center puts on Art in the Arboretum, where the public can enjoy the season through art, music and food. In the fall, the center places scarecrows throughout the gardens for a scarecrow walk. 

Students interested in getting involved at the center can do so through its internship program, which is open to students from all colleges, not just USU.

“I actually started getting familiar with the center as a student,” Kilcrease wrote. “I earned my degree in landscape construction and horticulture at the Kaysville campus in 2019. I started as a seasonal employee in 2017 and with the completion of my degree was hired as an irrigation technician, and over the past seven years I have continued to take on more responsibilities.”

Kilcrease believes the center provides a large green space for the community and is optimistic about the growth of the center. 

The Davis Agricultural Heritage Center is a recent addition that has an indoor and outdoor equine facility designed to serve the 4-H program, a United States Department of Agriculture-run youth development organization that focuses on the head, heart, hands and health. It includes an equine therapy program.

“We’d like to support that program to help with its continued success,” Kilcrease wrote. “As well as growth with education programs within the gardens and other programs on our property, to include 4-H, water quality (wings and water) and local school field trips.”   

The Wings and Water Wetlands Education Program allows students to explore the wetlands of the Great Salt Lake and is one of many youth education opportunities at the center.

The next event at the center Budding Botanists will be held on Dec. 3 and will include a lesson, activity and craft for youth. 

“Our community events are really starting to get attention and I hope that can continue to grow and get better and better,” Kilcrease wrote.