From the Church

Garden tours tell stories of Temple Square

SALT LAKE CITY — Latter-day Saints have always valued gardening, and modern-day visitors can celebrate this passion's past and present with free tours of the gardens at church headquarters.

While walking through the church plaza and on the Conference Center roof, "garden guides" tell the story about a neighbor of Brigham Young. This neighbor, a widow, once planted peas, hoping for a good crop for herself and her son. But as soon as she put the peas in the ground, a rooster walked along behind her and gobbled them up. When she realized this, the good sister "dispatched" the offending chicken with a quick slit to the throat, disemboweled him and removed the peas one by one for replanting. They enjoyed a beautiful crop of peas that summer, she wrote in her journal, and "a nice chicken dinner was had by all."

The garden tours celebrate the ingenuity of Latter-day Saint gardeners, from a widow's vegetable patch to the colorful spring tulip burst by the Beehive house.

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