The university's Kaysville
A university demonstration campus inside a commuter city, open every day and charging nothing
The Utah Botanical Center, and the ponds that are not the city's.
Utah State University Extension runs a research and demonstration campus at 80 East 725 South Sego Lily Drive in Kaysville: an arboretum, an edible demonstration garden, a pollinator garden, an urban farm, a parkstrip redesign, wetland areas and a stocked urban fishery, open sunrise to sunset every day with no entrance fee. The university's own directions start at the next city's freeway exit, the ponds carry the university's rules rather than the city's, and dogs on a leash are welcome, which is not true of eleven of Kaysville's twelve parks.
Southern Utah is the ground I actually work, several hours south of Davis County, so these pages are researched rather than lived. What is on them was read where it is published: five National Register nomination files for Kaysville buildings, the city's own power presentation filed as a public notice document, the Davis County Clerk's canvassed 2020 election report, the county recorder's parcel layer and two independent boundary authorities, Utah State University's own posted rules for its botanical campus, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's failed bank record. Every figure carries the date it was checked. A Davis County partner agent takes the ground level work.
The live question
Is the botanical centre free, and can you fish the ponds and bring a dog?
Free, yes on both, and the university publishes the rules rather than the city. Checked at Utah State University Extension on 15 August 2026: the gardens, ponds and trails are open sunrise to sunset with no entrance fee, donations accepted. The posted pond rules say plainly that "The ponds and surrounding trails are open everyday from sunrise to sunset with no fee" and that "Fishing licenses are required." Dogs on a leash are listed among the permitted activities. So this is a free, dog friendly, fishable, all day site inside a commuter city, and it is not the city's.
That last part matters more than it sounds, because Kaysville has two similarly named things and the city guide blurs them. The Kaysville Ponds are Utah State University's, on its botanical campus at 80 East 725 South Sego Lily Drive. Ponds Park and Ponds Park South are Kaysville City parks with a different rule book, and like every city park except the one on the bench, they prohibit animals. If somebody tells you dogs are fine at the ponds in Kaysville, they are right about one of these and wrong about the other.
The third useful fact is a direction. The university's own driving directions start from Interstate 15 exit 328, not from Kaysville's own exit 331: east half a mile to the Main Street light, south six tenths of a mile to the 50 West light, then south west another six tenths, with the parking entrance on the east side of Sego Lily Drive. The site is closer to the Farmington interchange than to Kaysville's. It is a small thing and it saves ten minutes of confusion on a first visit.
The botanical centre, in numbers
$0
entrance fee, and open every day of the year
Exit 328
the freeway door the university itself directs you to
4
fish species the state stocks in the ponds
1.1 mi
south south west of Kaysville City Hall, in a straight line
What is here
An arboretum, an urban farm, a pollinator garden and a demonstration of how to redesign a strip of verge.
Utah State University names the parts of the site on its own pages and the list is more interesting than "botanical gardens" suggests: an Edible Demonstration Garden, a Pollinator Garden, the Stokes Ornamental Grass and Iris collection, an Urban Farm demonstration, a Parkstrip Redesign demonstration, the William A. Varga Arboretum, the Kaysville Ponds and nature trails, wetland areas, an urban fishery, and walking and biking trails through the whole thing.
The Parkstrip Redesign is the one that explains the place. It is a demonstration of what to do with the narrow strip of ground between a pavement and a street, which is the least glamorous piece of land any Utah household owns and one of the thirstiest. That is what a research and extension campus is for, and it is why several of the areas here are laid out to show a method rather than to please the eye. The university's own mission statement puts it as guiding "the conservation and wise use of plant, water, and energy resources through research-based educational experiences, demonstrations, and technology."
The Utah House sits on the site too, a demonstration house built to show sustainable construction, with straw bale walls and water recycling systems, and self guided tour maps handed out at the house or at the Davis County extension office. The commonly circulated figures for it, a 2003 completion, five hundred thousand dollars and 2,300 square feet, are secondary rather than university published, and this page prints them as that. The university's pages do not say whether the house is currently open to visitors, so ring the centre before planning a visit around it.
The site has a small calendar of its own that is worth knowing about because none of it is a city event. The university names a Taste Tour and Ta-Dah, an Art in the Arboretum, a Scarecrow Walk and a Reindeer Express among its featured events, which between them cover late summer, autumn and December. Dates move every year, so treat those as four things that happen rather than four dates, and check the university calendar in the season you want.
The details
Getting there
Take the university's own directions rather than a phone's: from Interstate 15 exit 328, go east half a mile to the Main Street light, south six tenths of a mile to the 50 West light, then south west a further six tenths of a mile, with the parking entrance on the east side of Sego Lily Drive. That is the Farmington interchange rather than Kaysville's own at 200 North, and it is genuinely the better door. From Kaysville City Hall the simplest approach is south on Main Street and then west toward Sego Lily.
Before you go
- The address really is written 80 E. 725 S. Sego Lily Dr. That is not a typographical error and typing it as written is the way to find the place.
- Bring a licence if you intend to fish. The university's own rules state that fishing licences are required, and the state's community pond rules govern limits and method.
- Dogs on a leash are permitted here, which makes this and the bench park the two dog friendly outdoor destinations in Kaysville, under two different landowners.
- No swimming, no fires or fireworks, no camping or overnight stay, no firearms, and no feeding or capturing wildlife. Those are the university's rules and they are posted.
The ponds
Four stocked species, a licence requirement and a rule list most public water does not publish at all.
This is the part that answers a real Kaysville question with no other answer on this site. The urban fishery here is stocked by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and governed by the state's community pond framework, while the ground itself is the university's and carries the university's own posted rules. Both apply. The table sets out what each one says.
| What the university posts | What the state governs | What that means on the day | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access and cost | Ponds and surrounding trails open every day, sunrise to sunset, no fee | Nothing. Access is the landowner's to set | Turn up any day in daylight and pay nothing to walk it |
| Fishing | Permitted, and fishing licences are required | The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stocks it and the state's community pond rules apply | Buy or carry a current Utah licence, and read this year's guidebook entry for the specific water before you count a fish |
| What is in there | An urban fishery, described as part of the site | Rainbow trout as the primary stock, plus largemouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish, with catfish stocked most years | Rainbow trout is the likely catch. The state's own stocking record is the place to see what went in and when |
| Dogs | Dogs on a leash are listed among permitted activities | Nothing | Allowed here, and prohibited in every Kaysville city park except the one on the bench |
| Boats | Non motorised water craft such as canoes, kayaks or stand up paddle boards are listed as permitted | Community pond framing in circulation refers to shore fishing | A craft rule and a fishing method rule are two different things. Check both before putting a boat on the water and do not assume one answers the other |
| Swimming | Prohibited | Nothing | No swimming, at any time of year |
| Prohibited outright | Camping or overnight stay, alcohol, feeding or capturing wildlife, releasing domesticated animals or pets, firearms, fires or fireworks, pet waste, litter and discarded line | General state law | A tight rule set for a free site, and the university asks visitors to leave no trace and pack out what they pack in |
University rules from Utah State University Extension's posted pond rules page and stocking information from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources community fisheries listing, both checked in August 2026. No daily limit figure appears here: fishing limits are among the most frequently changed regulations in the state and the only source worth relying on is the current Utah Fishing Guidebook entry for this specific water. Re-check it each January when the guidebook changes.
Two things not to confuse, and one thing not to assume
Kaysville Ponds and Ponds Park are not the same place. The ponds are the university's urban fishery on the botanical campus. Ponds Park and Ponds Park South are city parks, named by Kaysville City on its own parks roster, with no address, acreage or amenity detail published for either of them at the time of this check. A visitor searching for the ponds and arriving at the park will find a different place with a different rule book, including the city's animal prohibition.
The site is not a city facility and the city cannot answer questions about it. Hours, fees, rules, events and closures all belong to Utah State University Extension, and its own pages are the place to check. That also means the site's arrangements can change on a university calendar rather than a municipal one, which is a different rhythm from the rest of this companion.
And there is no published acreage. The parcel the site sits on runs to about sixty acres with two adjacent large parcels beside it that are probably the rest of the holding, but neither the university nor the city publishes a figure for the centre itself, so none appears here. The honest description is a stretch of former farm ground on the city's south west side, which is what it looks like when you stand on it.
How it got here
A university campus that started in the town one exit south.
The centre was not always in Kaysville. The commonly given account is that it began in Farmington and moved to the Kaysville site in 1999, out of a partnership between the university, public agencies, individuals, civic groups, businesses and foundations. That account is secondary rather than university published and is printed here with that label; anyone wanting it confirmed should ask Utah State University directly. What is confirmed is where it is now: the site geocodes to Kaysville city at both the Census Bureau geocoder and the state municipal boundary layer, and the county parcel records it to Kaysville.
It is worth stating why that matters to this companion at all. The botanical centre is often filed under Farmington, one town south, because of the older history and because the freeway exit the university directs people to is Farmington's. Both of those are true and neither changes the ground. The centre is in Kaysville, so its page lives here, and the Farmington companion sends readers here rather than writing it twice.
There is one claim about the ground that this page declines to make. It is sometimes said that the Kaysville site was a university research farm before the botanical centre arrived, which would be a neat piece of continuity given what the Urban Farm demonstration does now. No issuing body publishes that claim, so it is not asserted here. If it is true it should be easy for the university to confirm, and until then it stays out.
What can be said about the ground is what it is doing today, which is unusual for a Wasatch Front city of this size. A land grant university runs a working demonstration campus with a stocked fishery, an arboretum, wetland areas and an urban farm inside the limits of a commuter town, keeps it open every day, and charges nothing to walk into it. Whatever it used to be, that is a real amenity and almost nobody outside Davis County knows it is there.
Three numbers about this site are in circulation and none of them comes from the university, so none of them is printed here as fact. The first is an acreage for the botanical centre; neither Utah State University nor Kaysville City publishes one, and the parcel figures on record are a lower bound rather than a site total. The second is the Utah House's set of build figures, usually given as completed in 2003 at a cost of 500,000 dollars with 2,300 square feet; those are secondary and should be verified at the university before anybody repeats them, along with whether the house is currently open to visitors at all. The third is a daily fishing limit; limits at community waters change and the only reliable source is the current Utah Fishing Guidebook entry for this specific water. A farmers market on the site also appears in secondary sources and was not on the university's own pages when they were checked in August 2026, so it is not listed here either.
Living with it
The free thing this city has that other cities charge for or do not have at all.
For a household in Kaysville this site does a specific job. It is the flat, all weather, no cost, no booking outdoor destination on the valley floor side of town, which is exactly what the bench park is not. Between the two, a household here has a paved and level loop with water and shade in the south west corner, and 140 acres of trail on the bench in the north east corner, both free, both dog friendly under their own rules, and about four miles apart. That is a better pair of everyday options than most cities of this size manage.
It is also the one place in Kaysville that is genuinely a destination for people who do not live here. Fishing is the obvious draw, and so is the arboretum in autumn, and the events the university runs in September and December pull from a wider area than the city. If you are weighing a street on the south west side, expect a little seasonal traffic on Sego Lily Drive and the 50 West approach on the days those events run.
The practical cautions are short. Read the university's rules rather than assuming city park rules apply, because they are different and in one respect, animals, they are opposite. Carry a licence if you plan to fish. Do not put a boat on the water without checking both the university's craft rule and the state's method rule, which answer different questions. And check the university's own calendar rather than an events aggregator, because the site's programme runs on an academic and seasonal rhythm rather than a municipal one.
The rest of the county's water edges are written once on the lakeside parks page, which is where the ponds sit alongside the county's other walkable water, and the bench side of Kaysville is on the wilderness park page.
The county's water
The lakeside parks
Every walkable water edge in Davis County outside the island and the bay, with the fishery rules that go with them.
Read the guideThe other free one
East Mountain Wilderness Park
One hundred and forty acres on the bench, walk-in tent camping, and the only city park gate a dog may use.
Read the guideMoving here
Moving to Kaysville
What the west and south west sides of this city actually run on, and where the city stops in every direction.
The mover pageBy price and season
Family weekends in Davis County
What the county's free and paid options cost and when they run, priced in one place rather than argued town by town.
Read the guideThe practical side
The Kaysville city guide
The market half of an address on this side of town, and what the schools, the utilities and the commute run to.
Open the guideThe wider county
Davis County on The Local
Fourteen more towns between the lake and the mountain, and the seven subjects written once for all of them.
The region hubKeep reading
More of Kaysville on The Local.
The wires
City power since 1908
A franchise in March 1908, the whole system bought in June for $1,850.
Read the guideThe bench park
East Mountain Wilderness Park
One hundred and forty acres, tent sites you walk into, and the one gate a dog may use.
Read the guideThe empty one
The Rock Building
A mayor of twenty five, New Deal money, and a stone building empty since 2015.
Read the guideBy correspondence
The man who built Kaysville
He learned architecture by post and built four of the six listed places in town.
Read the guideOne big week
The Fourth of July
Seven days at the end of June, and the town does not pretend to a second week.
Read the guideMoving here
Moving to Kaysville
The postmark says one city and the parcel can say another. Read the parcel.
Read the guideThe companion
Kaysville, in full
Wires from 1908, a bench park, a New Deal building, a university campus and one week.
Read the pageQuick answers
The botanical centre, answered.
Yes. Utah State University Extension publishes the gardens, ponds and trails as open sunrise to sunset with no entrance fee, and donations are accepted. The posted pond rules put it in the same terms: the ponds and surrounding trails are open every day from sunrise to sunset with no fee. There is no gate, no season and no ticket. A fishing licence is required if you intend to fish, and some of the university's own events on the site are ticketed separately, but walking in and using the gardens, the arboretum and the pond trails costs nothing.
At 80 E. 725 S. Sego Lily Drive, Kaysville, on the city's south west side, about 1.1 miles south south west of City Hall. The address is written exactly that way and it is not a typographical error. The university's own driving directions start from Interstate 15 exit 328, which is Farmington's rather than Kaysville's exit 331: east half a mile to the Main Street light, south six tenths of a mile to the 50 West light, then south west a further six tenths, with the parking entrance on the east side of Sego Lily Drive. The ponds are also published at 702 South 50 West.
Yes, with a current Utah fishing licence, which the university's own posted rules require. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stocks the water with rainbow trout as the primary species plus largemouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish, with catfish going in most years. Daily limits and any method restriction are governed by the state's community pond rules and by the entry for this specific water in the current Utah Fishing Guidebook, and no limit figure is printed here because fishing regulations are among the most frequently changed in the state. Read the current guidebook before counting a fish.
Yes, on a leash. Dogs on a leash appear in the university's own list of permitted activities alongside fishing, photography, birding and wildlife viewing, non motorised water craft, picnicking, walking, jogging and running. That is a different rule from the city's: Kaysville City prohibits animals in all its parks with the single exception of East Mountain Wilderness Park on the bench. So there are two dog friendly outdoor destinations in Kaysville, under two different landowners with two different rule books, and neither rule travels to the other place.
No, and this is the most common mix up in the city. Kaysville Ponds is the urban fishery on Utah State University's botanical campus on the south west side, with the university's own posted rules. Ponds Park and Ponds Park South are Kaysville City parks, named on the city's own parks roster, with the city's rules, including its prohibition on animals. The city publishes no address, acreage or amenity detail for either park, so a visitor searching for the ponds and landing at the park will find a different place with a different rule book.
Utah State University names an Edible Demonstration Garden, a Pollinator Garden, the Stokes Ornamental Grass and Iris collection, an Urban Farm demonstration, a Parkstrip Redesign demonstration, the William A. Varga Arboretum, the Kaysville Ponds and nature trails, wetland areas, an urban fishery, and walking and biking trails. The Utah House, a demonstration house with straw bale walls and water recycling systems, is also on the site, with self guided tour maps handed out at the house or at the Davis County extension office. Whether the house is currently open to visitors was not confirmed in this check.
The university lists non motorised water craft such as canoes, kayaks and stand up paddle boards among the permitted activities on its own posted rules page. Separately, the state's community pond framing in circulation refers to shore fishing. Those two are not necessarily in conflict, because a craft rule and a fishing method rule answer different questions, but they should not be blurred into one another. Check both the university's posted rules and the current state guidance for this water before putting a boat on it, and note that swimming is prohibited outright.
No issuing body publishes an acreage, so this page does not print one. The parcel the site sits on records at roughly sixty acres with two adjacent large parcels beside it that are probably part of the same holding, but neither Utah State University nor Kaysville City publishes a figure for the centre itself and the parcel arithmetic is a lower bound rather than a site total. The honest description is a stretch of former farm ground on the city's south west side, large enough to hold an arboretum, an urban farm, several gardens, wetland areas and a set of ponds with trails around them.
Utah State University names a Taste Tour and Ta-Dah, an Art in the Arboretum, a Scarecrow Walk and a Reindeer Express among its featured events, which between them cover late summer, autumn and December, alongside classes, workshops and volunteer opportunities. Dates move every year and some events are ticketed separately from the free daily access, so check the university's own calendar for the season you want rather than an events aggregator. A farmers market on the site appears in secondary sources and was not on the university's own pages when they were checked in August 2026.
A university campus hiding in plain sight on the south west side of a commuter city.
Kaysville has two genuinely good free outdoor destinations at opposite corners of the city, under two different owners, with two different rule books, and neither one is on the practical city guide. Which one is walkable from a given street is a real question when you are choosing between the west side and the bench, and it is the kind of thing that only shows up once you have stood on both. Tell me what a week here would need to look like and I will introduce you to a Davis County partner agent who works these streets, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.