Mission & History

The Sawtooth Botanical Garden is a community resource showcasing native and cultivated plants that flourish at high altitude. The Garden connects people to the region’s unique beauty and fosters environmental stewardship through education, events, displays, and plant collections.

Through its programs and services, the Sawtooth Botanical Garden provides information on plant cultivation and ecological principles relevant to the region’s climatic conditions and its plant and human communities.

The goal of the Garden is to establish a place to build community through the understanding and exploration of both native and cultivated plants. Understanding the unique ecology of our extraordinary inter-mountain west region and exploring the wonders of plant cultivation and care provide a multitude of opportunities to “celebrate plants and inspire people.”

History & Community

The Sawtooth Botanical Garden is non-profit 501 (c)3 public botanical garden. The Garden was founded in 1994 by a small local group of passionate gardeners and environmentalists as a community gardening center. With the generous support of the Global Environmental Project Institute, this group secured a 50-year lease for our five-acre site, constructed a community building with a solar greenhouse, and began their dream of establishing a public garden that has transformed over the years into a place of beauty, reflection and learning for thousands of visitors throughout the year.

The Garden serves the Wood River Valley community of approximately 22,500 and the wider south central Idaho region of over 100,000. People visit the garden from around the world, enjoying the beautiful displays of native and cultivated plants, enjoying educational programs for all ages and abilities, and benefiting from our staff’s unique expertise in horticulture, botany, arboriculture, and other natural sciences.

The five-acre garden is located adjacent to Highway 75, five miles south of the town of Ketchum, Idaho at 11 Gimlet Road.