Gardening in Scotland, the design of planned spaces set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature in Scotland began in the Middle Ages.
Gardens, or yards, around medieval abbeys, castles and houses were formal and in the European tradition of herb garden, kitchen garden and orchard. The first Renaissance style gardens in Scotland were built for the Stewart dynasty at their royal palaces. Members of the nobility and gentry followed suit. From the late sixteenth century, the landscaping of many estate houses was influenced by Italian Renaissance gardens. From this period there are many examples of formal gardens created for nobles, gentry and lairds. The legacy of the Auld Alliance and the beginnings of the grand tour meant that French styles were particularly important in Scotland, although adapted for the Scottish climate. In the late seventeenth century William Bruce put Scotland at the forefront of European garden design.
In the eighteenth century there was a reaction against the "absolutism" and "popery" of the French court and a retreat from the expense of maintaining large formal gardens. The move to a less formal landscape of parklands and irregular clumps of planting, associated in England with Capability Brown, was dominated in Scotland by his followers, Robert Robinson and Thomas White senior and junior. New ideas about gardening developed in the nineteenth century including the writings of Humphry Repton. The mid-nineteenth century saw the beginnings of formal public parks.
In the early twentieth century Scottish plant collectors continued to be highly active. Gardening began to be a major pursuit of the working and middle classes in the twentieth century. Some major planned gardens were created in the twentieth century including Ian Hamilton Finlay's Little Sparta and Charles Jencks' post-modern Garden of Cosmic Speculation.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Gardens, as designated spaces for planting, first came to Scotland with Christianity and monasticism from the sixth century. The monastery of Iona had such a garden for medicinal herbs and other plants and tended by an Irish gardener from the time of Columba (521–597).R. Sharpe, ed., Life of St Columba (London: Penguin, 1995), . By the late Middle Ages gardens, or yards, around medieval abbeys, castles and houses were formal and in the European tradition of herb garden, kitchen garden and orchard.F. Jamieson, "Gardening and landscapes" in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 258–60. Such gardens are known to have been present at Pluscarden Priory, Beauly Priory and Kinloss Abbey and created for the Bishop of Moray at Spynie in the mid-sixteenth century.M. M. Meikle, The Scottish People 1490–1625 (Lulu Press, 2014). The gardens of castles and estate houses were often surrounded by defensive walls and they sometimes adjoined a hunting park. Urban houses had gardens as part of burgage plots that stretched behind houses, often used to produce vegetables such as kale and beans.E. Ewen, "Sights, smells and sounds in the medieval town", in E. J Cowan and L. Henderson, A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), , p. 114.
The first Renaissance-style gardens in Scotland were built for the Stewart dynasty at their royal palaces. French gardeners were hired by James IV at Stirling Castle in 1501, where the King's Knot Garden was developed and at Holyrood Palace around 1504, where the gardens were probably remodelled from monastic gardens. A "Queen's Garden" was created there in 1511. The gardens at both Stirling and Holyrood were overseen by a priest, Sir John Sharp. James V remodelled the gardens at Holyrood again in 1536, employing the Frenchman Bertrand Gallotre at both Holyrood and Stirling. At Holyrood the ditches surrounding the gardens were improved and the ponds drained. Archaeological remains indicate there were sophisticated formal gardens. John Morrison became the chief gardener of the south side of the palace in 1546 and remained there until 1598. During the personal reign of Mary, Queen of Scots (1561–67), there was an emphasis on herbs and vegetables. The ponds may have been permanently drained in this period and the monastic areas were planted with trees to make orchards and pleasant walking areas. Similar landscaping is also found at Falkland Palace and Linlithgow Palace.
Members of the nobility and gentry followed suit, with gardens recorded for Hugh Rose of Kilravock, built in 1536, and for the Seatons of Touch at Greenknowe Tower, which had gardens and avenues surrounding it. The gardens at Kinloss were improved by William Luban of Dieppe after his arrival in Scotland in 1540 and four years later he created the garden around the new palace at Beauly.
Early Modern
Although relatively few early modern gardens have survived unchanged, they can be seen in the maps of Timothy Pont (c. 1565–1614) from the 1590s, which depict abbeys, castles and estate houses surrounded by greenery, earthworks, orchards and arboretums. From the late sixteenth century, the landscaping of many estate houses was influenced by Italian Renaissance gardens. These were seen as retreats from the troubles of the world and were eulogised in country house poetry like that of William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649).
From this period there are many examples of formal gardens created for nobles, gentry and lairds. By the end of the seventeenth century there were at least 141 formal gardens and orchards in Scotland.C. A. Whatley, The Scots and the Union: Then and Now (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2nd edn., 2014), , p. 85. The gardens of Aberdour Castle were redeveloped along with the building for the regent James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton (c. 1516–81), perhaps as an area for public display.A. Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Boydell & Brewer, 2015), , p. 151. Extensive gardens were developed at Pinkie House by Alexander Seton, 1st Earl of Dunfermline (1555–1622), with lawns, fountains, ponds and aviaries, designed for the entertainment of guests. Dunfermline's nephew, George Seton, 3rd Earl of Winton (1584–1650), planted a herb garden at Seton Palace in 1620. The Earl of Sutherland's castle at Dunrobin was surrounded by orchards, herbs and flowers. The best surviving garden from the early seventeenth century is that at Edzell Castle, where, between 1604 and 1610, David Lindsay (1551?–1610) created an enclosure of Renaissance-style walls, adorned with sculptures of the seven Cardinal Virtues, the seven Liberal Arts and the seven Planetary Deities, the expense of which eventually bankrupted him.K. Brown, Noble Society in Scotland: Wealth, Family and Culture from the Reformation to the Revolutions (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004), , pp. 210–11. The change to walled gardens may have been because of a change of attitudes to smells, with the walls helping to intensify the scent of the herbs and flowers that grew there.E. Foyster, "Sensory experiences: smells, sounds and touch", in E. A. Foyster and C. A. Whatley, eds, A History of Everyday Life in Scotland, 1600 to 1800 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), , p. 222.
Mary Sutton, Countess of Home had a terraced garden in Edinburgh's Canongate, at Moray House from the 1620s (now destroyed). She had inventories made of the trees and walks. The planting probably reflected other gardens in Edinburgh, but also would have responded to her experience of English gardens and the style of her cousin Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, particularly at Bedford House.Marilyn M. Brown & Michael Pearce, 'The Gardens of Moray House, Edinburgh', Garden History, 47:1 (2019), pp. 1-17. The legacy of the Auld Alliance and the beginnings of the grand tour meant that French styles were particularly important in Scotland, although adapted for the Scottish climate. From the late seventeenth century the gardens at Versailles, with their formal avenues, parterres, and fountains that stressed symmetry and order, were a model. After the Glorious Revolution Dutch influences were also significant, with uniform planting and topiary.C. Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), , pp. 135–6. Gardening books from the continent and England became widely available in this period and the first gardening book was published in Scotland. This was John Reid's, Scots Gard'ner (1683). Reid had been gardener at Niddry Castle, Hamilton Castle, and Drummond Castle and for George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh.Olive M. Geddes, The Laird's Kitchen: Three Hundred Years of Food in Scotland (HMSO, 1994), p. 27.M. Willes, The Making of the English Gardener (Yale University Press, 2011), , p. 274. The book borrowed from John Evelyn's (1658) translation of Nicholas de Bonnefon's Le jardinier françois (1651), adapting its ideas for Scottish conditions.
In the late seventeenth century William Bruce (c. 1630–1710) put Scotland at the forefront of European garden design. He lowered garden walls to incorporate the surrounding countryside into the vista. This allowed a focus on significant landscape features such as Bass rock at Balcaskie and Loch Leven Castle at Kinross. Alexander Edward (1651–1708) continued in the tradition established by Bruce, adding landscapes at houses including Hamilton Palace and Kinnaird castle, Angus. Grand schemes in the French tradition included James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry's (1662–1711) reworking of the terraces at Drumlanrig Castle, which incorporated the Douglas family crest into the parterres design. There is also the militaristic earthworks undertaken for Field Marshal John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair (1679–1747) at Castle Kennedy, Wigtownshire. The Earl of Mar's palace at Alloa was the grandest realisation of the Versailles style gardens in Scotland: it included canals, parterres, statues and ornamental trees. Common features in gardens of this period were elaborate sundials, such as the one created by John Mylne (c. 1589–1657) at Holyrood (1633) and that at Newbattle Abbey.H. Scott, ed., Scotland: A Concise Cultural History (Mainstream, 1993), , p. 208. The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh was founded in 1670, as a physic garden by combining the collections of doctor Robert Sibbald and botanist Andrew Balfour as a source of medicines. A physic garden was founded at the University of Glasgow in 1703.F. MacDonald, Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, 1599–1858: The History of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Volume 1 (A&C Black, 1999), , p. 169.
Eighteenth century
In the eighteenth century there was a reaction against the "absolutism" and "popery" of the French court and a retreat from the expense of maintaining large formal gardens. Less symmetrical layouts became common with the development of the "natural" style of the jardin anglais, which attempted to create vistas of a rural idyll. The antiquarian John Clerk of Pennycuik (1676–1755), one of the key figures in defining elite taste in Scotland, eulogising the estate garden in his poem The Country Seat (1727), which built on the ideas of Alexander Pope. He created gardens at Mavisbank and Penicuik, Midlothian, with the help of architect William Adam (1689–1748), which combined formality with undulating ground. Adam laid down that "the rising and falling of the ground are to be humoured and make the greatest Beauteys in gardens". Adam's work included the landscaped park and avenue at Yester House and Hopetoun House, where the landscaped garden was reminiscent of a Roman campagnia.T. W. West, Discovering Scottish Architecture (Botley: Osprey, 1985), , p. 102.