GARDEN
OF THE
DRY SALVAGES
SALT LAKE CITY, UT
An allegory of time, landscape and human experience
As part of the renovation of a 1970s modern house, the garden is conceived as a series of orderly yet poetic frames that bring architecture and landscape into conversation. Its character draws from the Uinta Mountains, modern French gardens and Japanese garden traditions, while its deeper narrative comes from T. S. Eliot's poem The Dry Salvages. The poem's meditation on time, memory and human existence provides a framework for translating those themes into a sequence of garden scenes.
Each space is composed in relationship to the architecture, with perspective and carefully framed views shaping the experience from within and beyond the house. Grading creates privacy and establishes changes in elevation, while forested meadow, sun and shade, and collections of plants create distinct environments and microclimates. The meadow is designed as an ecologically balanced plant community, bringing habitat and seasonal change into the garden. Enclosure becomes a way of moving between different emotional registers—at times intimate and quiet, at others more expansive and bold.
Stone plays an important role in the making of the garden. Boulders recycled from the site and from a nearby ski mountain construction project are placed as part of the larger composition, allowing local materials to carry a history into the new landscape. A white marble water basin, carved by hand to represent Utah's state flower, the sego lily, anchors a private meditation courtyard. The basin brings together water, stone and craftsmanship in a single element, creating a quiet focal point within the garden.
Planting responds to the changing conditions of the site, with forest, meadow, sun and shade creating opportunities for different plant communities and experiences. Consultation with local professional gardeners has informed the plant palette and approach to maintenance, ensuring that the garden can respond to Salt Lake City's changing climatic conditions while retaining its intended character. The garden is conceived not as a fixed composition, but as something that will require observation and care to mature.
The garden unfolds through a series of encounters with the house and landscape—views carefully held within architectural openings, spaces of enclosure and release, and moments where planting and stone obscure and reveal what lies beyond. In this way, the garden becomes more than a setting for the architecture. It offers a sequence of experiences through which the themes of the poem—time, change, memory and human existence—can be felt through the landscape.
Currently under construction.
Dobro Design
Landscape Architecture · Garden Design · Planting · Stone Carving · Hands-on Construction · Stewardship
Project Team
Living Home Construction · Dave Petersen / Landscaper