Scotland’s Gardens Scheme

Sunflowers, snowdrops, no dig plots, bee hives and wildflower meadows – Scotland’s Gardens Scheme launches 2024 season

Sunflowers, snowdrops, no dig plots, bee hives and wildflower meadows – Scotland’s Gardens Scheme launches 2024 season

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Scotland’s Gardens Scheme returns for 2024 with an exciting new season of gardens, raising funds for hundreds of charities and involving over 1000 volunteers and garden openers.

2024 season highlights include:

  • Over 50 new gardens will open their garden gates with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme for the first time
  • 26 group and village openings
  • 37 gardens opening as part of the Scottish Snowdrop Festival
  • 11 community and education gardens participating
  • An increasing trend towards wildlife-friendly and eco-conscious gardening

WELCOMING NEW GARDENS
Scotland’s Gardens Scheme is excited to welcome new gardens great and small and despite a tradition of stately homes and castles, it continues to see an increase in the number of smaller gardens enquiring about opening with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme. These gardens are appealing to garden visitors, providing real-life inspiration for their own gardens. However, castles and large gardens remain very popular for an insight into gardening on a grand scale.

Sunflower Dreams in Nairn (13 July) truly lives up to its name; the garden is a wildlife-friendly space with upcycled features and filled with blooms, including helichrysum, dahlias, nicotiana,  bedding plants – and of course sunflowers – all grown from seed in the owners’ greenhouse. Plenty of inspiration for those gardening on a budget.

Meanwhile, another newcomer to Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, Aldourie Castle (11 August) sits in a wonderful position overlooking Loch Ness. The garden has been designed by Tom Stuart-Smith and is an ambitious modern re-imagining of a traditional castle garden and grounds, including a 1.3 acre walled garden with a large productive area hosting a range of vegetables and cut flowers.

PLANT SALES & SPECIAL EVENTS

As well as a range of plant sales where visitors can snap up plant bargains, often including the rare and unusual, some gardens also include special features in their open days to make the day go with a swing.  Redcroft (11 & 12 May) and 20 Blackford Road (2 June), both in Edinburgh, will feature musical entertainment at their open days. Westgate in Dundee (19 & 20 October) and 12 Chatelherault Avenue in Glasgow (14 September) both feature later season openings, with the opportunity for an atmospheric evening, as the former garden is floodlit and the latter will feature pizza from their garden pizza oven.

Some events hark back to their historic origins with traditional family fun days; Drummond Castle near Crieff (4 August), with its magnificent Italianate parterre will run its lovely annual open day for Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, which features family attractions, ice cream and teas in August. In East Lothian, Winton Castle (14 April) celebrates the start of spring – and its 90th open day with Scotland’s Gardens Scheme – with its wonderful garden fete where visitors can meander through swathes of thousands of daffodils.

CELEBRATING SNOWDROPS
Scotland’s Gardens Scheme celebrates the Scottish Snowdrop Festival with 37 participating gardens, including beautiful white carpets of thousands of snowdrops at Danevale in Kirkcudbrightshire (18 February), Craig in Dumfriesshire (18 February) or curated collections of rare and unusual treasures at Bruckhills Croft in Aberdeenshire (by arrangement 3 February to 17 March), Shepherd House in East Lothian (18 February and Tuesdays/Thursdays throughout the month) and 10 Pilmuir Road West in Moray (by arrangement 25 January – 11 March). Scone Palace will also open its gates for the charity with the chance to join Head Gardener, Beechgrove regular and Scotland’s Gardens Scheme Ambassador, Brian Cunningham and his team to plant snowdrops in the green on Sunday 25th February.

Read more about snowdrop gardens here: https://scotlandsgardens.org/snowdrops-and-winter-walks/

WILDLIFE- FRIENDLY AND ECO-CONSCIOUS GARDENING

Reflecting the growing trend across many UK gardens, Scotland’s Gardens Scheme’s 2024 programme includes an increasing number of gardens that actively seek to incorporate environmentally-friendly practises in their gardens. Indeed, there are few gardens these days that don’t include a pollinator patch, compost heap, unmown section of grass or wildlife-friendly corner of the garden, however small, and garden visitors find these touches fascinating and take inspiration for their own gardens.

A number of garden owners are beekeepers and you can find hives at quite a few; Barochreal in Argyl (by arrangement 1 May to 30 September) even has a purpose-built bee shelter to prevent hives from getting waterlogged in the area’s wet climate. The Moorhouse in the Scottish Borders (23 June) specialises in eco-friendly ‘grown not flown’ cut flowers, grown without chemical fertilisers and pesticides and floristry and visitors will be able to see how they grow their cut flowers and experience bouquet workshops on their open day.  Over the past few years, Willowhill in Fife (by arrangement and also specific open dates from 27 April – 31 August) has created new ‘no dig’ herbaceous borders and visitors are invited to view these through the season and learn from the owners’ experience.  And a new group of gardens at Covington in Lanarkshire (16 June) will include wildflower meadows with 80 species spotted in 2023, and a moth expert who will be on hand to show the different species of moth found in gardens.

WHERE THE MONEY WENT IN 2023

Last year Scotland’s Gardens Scheme gave £289,700 in total to a range of good causes. The charity is unique in that 60% of funds raised may go to a cause selected by garden owners. Last year, over £230,000 went directly to charities and good causes chosen by garden owners. In addition, £16,000 each went to Scotland’s Gardens Scheme core charity partners, Perennial, Maggie’s and the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland.  A new bursary scheme launched in March 2023 gave £8,200 for grants to horticulturists in Scotland, for personal and professional training and development, administered by the Professional Gardeners’ Trust on behalf of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, while a further £3,500 was donated to the National Trust for Scotland, supporting the professional development of their gardeners.

“We’re thrilled to launch another season of exciting garden open days to the public. As always, it’s such a pleasure to welcome a host of new gardens into the fold and we know our visitors take great pleasure and inspiration from these gardens, whatever their shape, style or size. Opening gardens is really a joyful way to raise money for charity and it’s such a ‘win-win’ – as well as fundraising, our gardeners and visitors are sharing good gardening practices, meeting new people and spending time together in the great outdoors – all such great ways to boost the wellbeing benefits of gardens and gardening. We hope you’ll join us in 2024.” said Liz Stewart, Scotland’s Gardens Scheme Chief Executive.

For details of all this and lots more to whet the appetite for the garden visiting season ahead, browse through the Scotland’s Gardens Scheme website or buy the 2024 guidebook, available on the website at scotlandsgardens.org.

ENDS

 If you would like a copy of the 2024 Guidebook, please email info@scotlandsgardens.org with your name and address.

For trade sales, books can be ordered through Bookspeed: https://www.bookspeed.com/product/140009/scottish-gardens-open-for-charity-2024-by-scotlands-gardens-scheme

For more information:

Emma Mason emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk 07762 117433
Jessica Taylor jessica@scotlandsgardens.org

https://scotlandsgardens.org

NOTES FOR EDITORS 

Scotland’s Gardens Scheme supports the opening of gardens throughout Scotland to the public, raising funds for charity through garden gate tickets, plant sales and teas. Most are privately owned and are normally inaccessible to the public at other times.  60% of funds raised at each garden opening may go to garden owner’s charity of choice with the remainder being donated to Scotland’s Gardens Scheme and its beneficiary charities, Maggie’s, the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland and Perennial. Scotland’s Gardens Scheme is powered by volunteers and has been raising funds for charity through garden openings since 1931.

Full garden details can be found at scotlandsgardens.org. Garden and charity highlights can also be found on:

X @ScotGardens   
Instagram @ScotlandGardenScheme  
Facebook @ScotlandsGardens  

TikTok @scotlandsgardens

LinkedIn
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/ScotlandsGardensScheme

Birds, bees, butterflies and brilliant wee beasties: wildlife and biodiversity in Scotland’s open gardens to be celebrated in 2020

Birds, bees, butterflies and brilliant wee beasties: wildlife and biodiversity in Scotland’s open gardens to be celebrated in 2020

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  • 526 gardens to open their gates for charity across the country during the year
  • 89 gardens opening for the first time
  • At least 47 gardens opening for a May Garden Festival Weekend (23-25 May), 26 participating in Snowdrops & Winter Walks (Feb-March) and 17 in the Angus & Dundee Garden Trail during June
  • 8 allotments, 9 therapeutic, 17 community and 3 school gardens, plus several retirement homes
  • Over 250 charities, large and small, to benefit from funds raised
  • Openings will raise importance of ‘healthy gardens’ packed with wildlife and their contribution to environment and tackling climate chang

 

The positive impact gardens can make to the environment in a world battling climate change is to be highlighted this year by the open garden charity Scotland’s Gardens Scheme.

With over 500 mainly private gardens opening their gates to the public, and around 40% of those boasting a wildlife area, the charity is calling on visitors to embrace the natural world by enjoying, learning and being inspired to create nature-friendly features in their own gardens at home.

“Every little helps: whether it be planting flowers to attract pollinators or using natural pest controls; making a garden pond or keeping bees,” says the charity’s President, HRH The Duchess of Rothesay (HRH Duchess of Cornwall) in the 2020 Scotland’s Gardens Scheme Guidebook, which also includes wildlife gardening tips from Simon Milne MBE, Regius Keeper for the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Special wild gardens opening this year include Baile Geamhraidh on a biodynamic farm on the Island of Lismore in the Inner Hebrides, where wildflowers, birds, bees and butterflies abound; Barochreal in Argyll with active beehives, a wild garden, a small glen and waterfall where 40 different species of moth and over 70 species of wildflowers, including three types of wild orchid, have been spotted, as well as red squirrels and pine martins; and Bruckills Croft in Aberdeenshire, the home of award-winning wildlife gardener Helen Rushton, which has its own butterfly alley.

For the first time, a May Garden Festival Weekend (23-25 May) will be held with dozens of gardens opening across Scotland, including many normally only open ‘by arrangement’. Galanthophiles will love the 26 gardens opening for Snowdrop & Winter Walks during February and March including  Kailzie Gardens in Peeblesshire & Tweeddale, a snowdrop collection of over 150 varieties at Ecclesgreig Castle in Kincardine & Deeside, and Danevale Park which is opening for the fiftieth time on 23 February with an old-fashioned tea served in the house. Running over Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays in June, the Angus & Dundee Garden Trail will offer 17 diverse gardens to explore, including a wildflower meadow, community garden and productive walled garden.

During the year visitors will get the chance to visit 89 new gardens, opening to the public for the first time for the charity, including:

  • Jupiter Artland, & Bonnington House, Edinburgh & West Lothian: private garden of Bonnington House and extensive grounds of the adjoining award-winning sculpture park, and contemporary arts and education venue – Jupiter Artland, is an example of an extraordinary marriage of arts and nature.
  • Gardyne Castle, Angus: beautiful and varied formal gardens, featuring a fishpond and the family’s collection of chickens, merge into mature woods and parkland with a spectacular display of bluebells and romantic walks along the Denton Burn.
  • Duchess of Montrose Memorial Garden, Glasgow & District: a delightful and peaceful new garden created from the derelict site of a former shipyard. The garden has provided huge therapeutic benefits for everyone who has visited it.
  • 1 Burnton Road, Ayrshire: a serpentine path meanders through dense planting of palms, bamboos and tree ferns. Of particular note are hardy and tender bromeliads and aroids such as arisaema and colocasia.
  • Crinan, Wigtownshire : ten lochs, many unusual conifers including Wollemi Pine.
  • Bothwell Village Gardens, Lanarkshire: four delightful gardens developed by various local organisations in conjunction with the Local Authority. Each has its own atmosphere created by individual plantings. You will find formal and informal gardens, managed woodland, a sensory garden, suffragette-inspired planting, wildflowers, sculptures, plus quirky features such as craft bombing and fairy doors.

“This year we are thinking about healthy gardens by celebrating wildlife,” said Terrill Dobson, National Organiser for Scotland’s Gardens Scheme. “Our gardens and greenspaces are ecosystems that nurture a vast array of biodiversity including insects, butterflies, birds, small animals, earthworms and even beneficial bacteria. And these in turn benefit our gardens, through pollination, improved structure and pest control, just to name a few. It’s wonderful to offer the public so many fantastic nature-friendly gardens to visit and we’re hoping lots of people will walk away inspired by what they’ve seen.”

Other highlights include Shetland gardens celebrating 10 years opening for the charity such as Cruisdale,  Highlands Garden, Lea Gardens, Nonavaar and Norby.

More than 250 local and national charities will benefit from the funds raised through garden openings including Scotland’s Gardens Scheme’s own beneficiary charities – the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland, Maggie’s and Perennial. It will also be offering a £5,000 bursary to a guest charity to help fund projects to improve physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Last year Trellis received a bursary towards its excellent work to support therapeutic gardens across Scotland.  Over £1 million has been raised for charity over the last four years through Scotland’s Garden Scheme’s openings.

ENDS

For further media information please contact: Emma Mason on emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk or 07762 117433.  High res images and logos are available.

OR Terrill Dobson, National Organiser, on  terrill@scotlandsgardens.org  or 0131-226 3714,

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Scotland’s Gardens Scheme raises money for other charities by facilitating the opening of large and small gardens of horticultural interest throughout Scotland to the public. Most are privately owned and are normally inaccessible to the public at other times.

Visitors can plan their days out to participating gardens by clicking onto scotlandsgardens.org.  Click on which area you’d like to visit and details of all gardens opening locally will be displayed, with opening hours, online map and key details. Garden highlights can also be found on Twitter @ScotGardens  Instagram ScotlandGardenScheme and on Facebook ScotlandsGardens.  As well as on the website, garden listings can be found in the Scotland’s Gardens Scheme 2020 Guidebook, on sale in major bookshops, at tourist attractions, garden centres etc and online via www.scotlandsgardens.org.

Sixty percent of funds raised may go to charities nominated by each garden owner with the net remainder being donated to SGS beneficiary charities.

 

 

 

Visit a Scottish open garden this year and get your nature fix whilst raising cash for charity

Visit a Scottish open garden this year and get your nature fix whilst raising cash for charity

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  • Over 500 private gardens to open their gates for charity across Scotland during 2019
  • Mental and physical health benefits of gardening being highlighted
  • Community and therapeutic gardens; allotments; contemporary, traditional, grand, rural, coastal and cottage
  • 64 gardens opening for the first time
  • 256 local and national charities to benefit
  • Number of garden openings by region – Aberdeenshire (24); Angus & Dundee (25); Argyll &Lochaber (33); Ayrshire & Arran (22); Berwickshire (6); Caithness, Sutherland, Orkney & Shetland (16); Dumfriesshire (24); Dunbartonshire (7); East Lothian (13); Edinburgh, Midlothian & West Lothian (23); Fife (28); Glasgow & District (14); Inverness, Ross, Cromarty & Skye (36); Kincardine & Deeside (9); Kirkcudbrightshire (18); Lanarkshire (9); Moray & Nairn (11); Peeblesshire & Tweeddale (21); Perth & Kinross (43); Renfrewshire (7); Roxburghshire (9); Stirlingshire (21) and Wigtownshire (9).

The positive link between gardening and health is being celebrated by Scotland’s Garden Scheme as it unveils hundreds of private gardens opening to the public during 2019 to raise money for charity.

Whether you garden yourself, have a desire to learn more or just want to reap the wellbeing benefits of being around nature, the national open garden charity is encouraging people to get out and explore Scotland’s horticultural treasures. And for the second year running it will be joining its sister organisation in England and Wales, the National Garden Scheme, to hold a Gardens & Health Week* giving community groups and schools free access to volunteer gardens to show how therapeutic and inspiring garden spaces can be.

Dumfries Train Station garden

Over the year, 516 gardens will be welcoming visitors under the scheme including seven allotments, 14 community gardens, 34 villages and groups, 39 historic designed landscapes and four therapeutic gardens. More than 175 volunteers will be giving their time. Children’s activities will be taking place in 47 gardens and 180 gardens will be serving homemade teas (with cream in a further 18). Visitors will be able to explore 15 spectacular gardens on spring and summer trails in Fife, and 26 gardens and woodlands for snowdrops and winter walks. Included in the 64 gardens opening for the first time are:

  • Dumfries Station Garden, a colourful, all-year interest garden planted on both sides of a working train station by a thriving ‘station adopters’ community group;
  • Fairnielaw in North Berwick with its mixed tree mini forest and contemporary garden rooms;
  • the popular Berridale Allotments and Gardens in Cathcart, a Glaswegian horticultural stalwart since before WW2;
  • the plots of the Allotment Association of Crieff, renowned to be the most scenic in Scotland;
  • Ellisland Wild Garden next to the River Nith in Dumfriesshire and the former home of poet Robert Burns;
  • a quirky enclosed tarmac garden at the Bravehound project at Erskine Hospital in Bishopton, which provides companion dogs to military veterans;
  • Preston Hall Walled Garden in Midlothian, a beautiful example of a 18th century walled garden which the owners started to restore in 2011; and
  • the romantic garden at Ardno and Strachur House on Loch Fyne with its walled garden, gorge and meadow.

This year’s guidebook ‘cover garden’ is the photogenic Whitburgh House Walled Garden in Pathhead, Midlothian which is described as a ‘lively forward-looking and unexpected gem’. This contemporary garden boasts clipped foliage that acts as a foil for the many perennials, grasses, annuals, fruit and veg, plus ponds and sculptures around 14 acres of grounds.

“We gardeners share a secret – our gardens are like a very special friend, helping us with our health and wellbeing. When we’re stressed, they calm us. They get us out of the house when the winter darkness is tugging at us. And our garden can nourish us, literally, as you can grow so much in a small space. Fortunately, even if you are not a gardener, you can still enjoy many of the benefits by visiting them. What a wonderful way to spend time, out in the fresh air, surrounded by the serenity of a beautiful garden,” said Terrill Dobson, National Organiser for Scotland’s Gardens Scheme. “This year, we have a fantastic variety on offer for you to visit; from allotments to therapeutic gardens; villages and groups; and cottage-styled gardens to castles.”

More than 250 local and national charities will benefit from the funds raised through garden openings including Scotland’s Gardens Scheme’s own beneficiary charities – the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland, Maggie’s and Perennial. It will also be offering a £5,000 bursary to a guest charity to help fund garden-based projects to improve physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Last year Horatio’s Garden received a bursary towards a garden room at its project at the Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit in Glasgow. Over £1 million has been raised for charity over the last four years through Scotland’s Garden Scheme’s openings.

ENDS

For further media information please contact: Emma Mason on emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk or 07762 117433.  High res images are available.

OR Terrill Dobson, National Organiser, on  terrill@scotlandsgardens.org  or 0131-226 3714,

 

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Scotland’s Gardens Scheme raises money for other charities by facilitating the opening of large and small gardens of horticultural interest throughout Scotland to the public. Most are privately owned and are normally inaccessible to the public at other times.

Visitors can plan their days out to participating gardens by clicking onto www.scotlandsgardens.org.  Click on which area you’d like to visit and details of all gardens opening locally will be displayed, with opening hours, online map and key details. Garden highlights can also be found on Twitter @ScotGardens  Instagram ScotlandGardenScheme and on Facebook ScotlandsGardens.  As well as on the website, garden listings can be found in the Scotland’s Gardens Scheme 2019 Guidebook, on sale in major bookshops, at tourist attractions, garden centres etc and online via www.scotlandsgardens.org.

Sixty percent of funds raised may go to charities nominated by each garden owner with the net remainder being donated to SGS beneficiary charities.

*Further details on Gardens & Health Week, to be held this summer, will be available on the Scotland’s Gardens Scheme website in the spring and on the National Garden Scheme website www.ngs.org.uk.

 

Scotland's Gardens

Royal visit to Ayrshire garden helping community to bloom

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THE DUKE and Duchess of Rothesay helped residents and school children from an ex-mining town in Ayrshire celebrate the grass roots success of their popular, local community garden, during a very special open day for charity Scotland’s Gardens Scheme.

Their Royal Highnesses visited Netherthird Community Garden near Cumnock in East Ayrshire, meeting the volunteers, local residents and school children who all benefit from the horticultural ‘oasis of calm’ built on a patch of scrubland next to Netherthird Primary School.

Scotland's Gardens

The Duke and Duchess of Rothesay meeting garden volunteer Ian Marshall ©Robert Davis

The garden, the brainchild of Margaret Campbell, was set up in 2010 and is helping to transform the lives of many local residents. It opened to the general public for the first time this year to raise money for charity through the Scotland’s Gardens Scheme and this second, special opening welcomed the Royal couple. The Duchess of Rothesay is the President of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme and the Prince Charles’ Foundation recently provided funding for a wooden gazebo seating area in the garden.

The green-fingered project helps a host of community groups including the neighbouring school, which uses it as an outdoor classroom; local children’s group Four Connections; the Riverside Adult Education Facility, and Netherthird Community Action Training, which assists young people gain employment skills and training to help them compete in the jobs market, is based there. They all get to enjoy the colourful cottage garden and flower beds, productive vegetable garden and polytunnel, play area and café.

Margaret Campbell from Netherthird Community Garden said: “We are really delighted to have welcomed the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay to Netherthird Community Garden, they have worked so hard to improve and develop our surrounding towns and villages. This visit means so much to all the volunteers and to the people from our community.”

Terrill Dobson, National Organiser for Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, said: “This project proves how beneficial gardens can be; spaces for learning, healing, supporting and having fun. Netherthird has such strong community support behind it which is wonderful to see and we’re thrilled the garden opens to the public as part of our scheme.”

ENDS

For further information contact Imogen McCaw (imogen@scotlandsgardens.org) or Emma Mason (emma@emmamasonpr.co.uk) 07762 117433