The place

The Sacred Grove Garden is a deeply contemplative sanctuary carved into the civic fabric of downtown Salt Lake City. Enclosed by pioneer heritage granite architecture, it is a site-specific forest clearing designed to transport visitors from the urban grid into a quiet, meditative wilderness. It exists as a space where filtered light floods the upper tree canopy and gives significance to the spiritual legacy of the site.

The brief

The studio was commissioned to design a landscape that functions as a space for quiet reflection, prayer, teaching, a gathering space for the public, and a garden room with deep spiritual significance for the faith. The brief required a naturalistic woodland canopy that echoes the historic landscape of upstate New York — honoring the origins of the faith — while maintaining a highly respectful and reverent atmosphere. Through new interventions, the design needed to establish a sense of enclosure and sanctuary for visitors to Temple Square and local birdlife away from the city's busy thoroughfares.

The design

The masterplan organizes the grove using an organic layout that almost disappears under the layered canopy structures. The design replaces formal bedding plants with a permanent palette of sedges, ferns, and woodland poppies, while the herbaceous forest gives the landscape balance and a quiet permanence.

The foundational layer uses mature, native broadleaf trees — Acer tataricum (Tatarian Maple), Betula nigra 'Cully' (Heritage River Birch), Betula populifolia 'Whitespire' (Whitespire Gray Birch, clump form), and Ulmus americana 'Valley Forge' (American Elm) — to cast an overarching canopy of dappled shade.

A tight matrix of non-competitive, shade-loving perennials, such as Carex pensylvanica (Pennsylvania Sedge) and Stylophorum diphyllum (Woodland Poppy), forms a dense, continuous understory.