Experiment and have fun, horticulturist says

Dick Hildreth, the founding director of Red Butte Garden, is one of the best friends Utah gardeners have ever had.

He has spent his life researching, teaching and sharing his vast horticultural knowledge with gardeners in Utah and surrounding states, and there are few people who are as well qualified to teach about the plants that flourish here.

On Thursday, Hildreth, who retired to Arizona in 1999, will return to Utah to talk about gardening in the West. He will also compare gardening in the Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan and Great Basin deserts. The event is co-sponsored by the Wasatch Rock Garden Society, the Utah Native Plant Society, the Utah Nursery and Landscape Association and Utah State University Salt Lake County master gardeners.

Hildreth's love of plants started early in his life. His father, respected horticulturist Aubrey Clare Hildreth, was the director of the Cheyenne Field Station for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"His job was to discover and introduce new woody plants that had commercial and ornamental value and were tolerant of the harsh Wyoming conditions," Hildreth said in a phone interview from his home in Tucson.

Those experiences helped Hildreth learn about the many varieties that could thrive in Utah's cold winter climates. And although Cheyenne Field Station has been closed for many years, "my dad's work lives on because he instilled in me a love of finding new plants and getting others to try them," he said.

Hildreth's education in Wyoming was followed by other studies at Ohio State and the University of California-Davis. He left his position as director of the Saratoga Horticultural Foundation and moved to Utah in 1977 to direct the state arboretum on the University of Utah campus.

While in this position, he envisioned a unique Intermountain botanical garden that would not only be a showplace but an outdoor laboratory for new plants. The result was Red Butte Gardens.

While much of his career has been devoted to trees, Hildreth is passionate about other plants. He helped found the Utah Native Plant Society and helped other organizations promote plant discovery, preservation and use.

"I have a fondness for native plants because most are already highly adapted to our area," he said.