I recently went to visit Temple Square in Salt Lake City for the soul purpose of looking at the flowers. I was driving by on another trip from my home in Logan, and remember the beautiful flowers that I had seen in the broadcast of General Conference the week before. So I took a small half hour sidetrip to see some bulbs, pansies, and flowering cherries.

Temple Square is done extensively in raised roof-top gardens due to underground parking areas, and other city construction. With that in minds, it is amazing to see them grow full sized trees, full flower beds, and lawn. There is also tons of reflecting pools and raised bed areas. The style is more formal, and most of the flower beds are planted with annuals and bulbs.

Several things that I noticed that really caught my eye as good ideas (and shame on me because I don’t have pictures!). One, they had planters attached to the wall with the holes in the sides. They planted annuals in them, so it did appear a lot like the annuals were growing out of the wall, but without the hassle of making flowers grow out from the side of the wall.

All their flower beds were also on drip tape. I bet this makes it easier to water, more effecient for the large amount of beds they have, and also gets rid of spraying spinklers that can spray the sidewalks and be a disruption to the public visiting the area.

I loved their use of color. Every color wasn’t everywhere–they used schemes and different accents at different places in the garden. I remember thinking towards the end of the trip that I hadn’t seen a red tulip, when I came across beds full full of red tulips. Every color was used, but in a tasteful way. I also liked the use of orange as an accent color in cool color beds.

The scent also impressed me. Most of it was due to the flowering cherries in full bloom. For large stretches, even when the cherries weren’t close, I could smell that sweet springy smell. The grape hyacinths were also quite fragrant with a more lilac smell.

The gardens show a lot of work and design skill. They are the most colorful and well kept gardens I have been too, with extensive use of annuals, water features, and raised beds. If you want more, you can go visit. They offer garden tours, and more information is available here. Also I highly recommend the book Temple Square Gardening. It has the best section on annual flower bed design of any book I’ve seen, with lots more gardening advice.