Scottish Lowlands Garden Tour 2027

Arrive in Edinburgh and settle into the Apex Grassmarket Hotel. Our first night is in the Old Town, where the Grassmarket sits beneath the castle and streets lead uphill towards the Royal Mile. It is a convenient setting for the start of the tour, whether you would like a short walk after travelling or some time to rest before dinner.

If you arrive early enough to explore, Victoria Street and the surrounding lanes offer an introduction to the city. Edinburgh’s changes of level give even a short walk its own sequence of views: stone façades, narrow passages and sudden glimpses of the castle. Any independent sightseeing today is at your own arrangement.

This evening we meet for a welcome dinner at the hotel. It is an opportunity to get to know your fellow travellers and look ahead to a week of gardens in the Lowlands. The programme brings together private gardens, estates, contemporary design and botanical collections, with time on the coast and in the city between our garden visits.

Tomorrow we leave Edinburgh for East Lothian before continuing to our country hotel. For the next four nights, we will return to the same base in the Borders after each day’s excursions.

Our first garden visit is to Shepherd House in Inveresk. Charles and Ann Fraser have developed this garden around their late seventeenth-century home over many years, allowing it to evolve through successive ideas and changes. Its approximately one-acre scale makes it especially rewarding to explore closely: individual plants, a view along a path and the relationship between foliage and surrounding features all have a part in its character.

Ann’s work as an artist finds expression in the garden’s colour, texture and form. Rose parterres, a rill, fountains and a shell house sit among the planting, giving the garden a mixture of intimacy and surprise. Plants fill the borders, climb over arches and accompany the paths. For anyone who gardens at home, there is particular pleasure in seeing how much variety can be brought into a relatively small space without losing a sense of belonging.

We continue to Dunbar for free time. This coastal town gives us a break between the morning and afternoon gardens and an opportunity to choose lunch independently. You may prefer to spend the interval in the town or take a short walk towards the harbour, according to the time available.

In the afternoon we visit Tyninghame, where the garden belongs to an estate landscape of a very different scale. The sandstone house was remodelled by William Burn in the nineteenth century, while the gardens combine herbaceous planting, old-fashioned roses and established woodland. Lady Haddington’s Secret Garden is one of its characteristic spaces, bringing enclosure and personal detail into the wider setting.

The formal walled garden at Tyninghame includes lawn, sculpture, yew hedges and an Apple Walk, with herbaceous planting and an informal arboretum adding further interest. The contrast between clipped structure and the growth of summer is part of the appeal. Woodland and mature trees give the estate a depth that cannot be conveyed by a border alone; they help connect the garden to the surrounding East Lothian landscape.

After our visit we travel to Macdonald Cardrona Hotel, Golf & Spa, near Peebles. Set in the Tweed Valley, it is our base for the next four nights, allowing us to unpack and settle into the country part of the journey.

Today takes us into the gardens of the Scottish Borders, beginning at Carolside near Earlston. The eighteenth-century house stands in parkland beside a bend of the River Leader, with wooded hills providing its setting. It is a landscape that gives the garden a quiet sense of enclosure before we enter its more intimate spaces.

Carolside is celebrated for its historic roses and National Collection of Gallica Roses, alongside its herbaceous borders and succession of garden rooms. The planting has the character of a plantswoman’s garden, with careful relationships between colour and foliage. Its smaller gardens include a herb garden, a Secret Garden and a Hidden Garden reached through a green Gothic door, each contributing a different mood to the whole.

The collection gives roses a significance beyond a single season’s display. Many historic roses flower once, and their timing varies, so our July visit is an opportunity to enjoy Carolside as a complete summer garden rather than to depend on every rose being in bloom. Borders, garden structure and the surrounding landscape all contribute to its appeal. The changes between enclosed spaces and open views make it a particularly engaging place to wander.

We then continue to Floors Castle near Kelso, with lunch included during our visit. Here, gardening takes place on an estate scale, and the walled garden retains a productive role alongside its ornamental planting. Fruit, herbs and vegetables continue the tradition of supplying the estate’s kitchens, linking the garden to the food served on the property.

Within the four-acre walled garden, herbaceous borders range from cooler silver and blue planting to warmer colours. The nineteenth-century glasshouses preserve another aspect of Victorian cultivation, with a tradition of growing tender plants and fruit. The Tapestry Garden, designed by Angel Collins and created in 2016, adds meandering paths and grassy spaces to this more established framework.

The Millennium Garden offers a further contrast. Its French-style parterre incorporates the initials of the tenth Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe, with trained heritage apple trees on the upper terrace. At the end stands the Queen’s House, built for Queen Victoria’s visit in 1867. Together, these spaces bring ornamental design, horticultural skill and estate history into the same garden visit.

We return to Cardrona after a day that moves from Carolside’s intimate garden rooms to the broad interests of a working castle estate.

This morning we visit Jupiter Artland, where contemporary sculpture is encountered through meadow and woodland in West Lothian. The landscape is central to the experience. Works appear in clearings, beside water or among trees, and the walk between them is part of what makes the visit memorable. As the surroundings change, so does the way we see the art.

Charles Jencks’s Cells of Life introduces a particularly striking relationship between shape and ground. Eight landforms and a connecting causeway surround four lakes and a flat parterre, their forms referring to the process of cell division. The sculpted earth and water create a setting to explore through changing viewpoints, with close details giving way to a larger composition.

Elsewhere, Jupiter Artland brings together permanent works by international artists and a changing exhibition programme. For garden visitors, the interest extends to how a work occupies space: its scale against a tree, the way light reaches it and what becomes visible as we approach. There is room for individual responses as well as shared conversation. Lunch is included during our visit.

In the afternoon we travel to Broadwoodside near Gifford. Here, contemporary garden-making starts from the buildings and walls of a former farm steading. Robert and Anna Dalrymple have transformed the setting into a garden whose structure grows from the spaces already there, including two sheltered courtyards.

This gives Broadwoodside a distinctive relationship between architecture and planting. The enclosed spaces have a clear framework, while the garden extends outwards into farmland and woods. Areas of planting, a pond, a temple and objects within the landscape provide successive points of interest. It is a place where an unexpected detail can enliven an otherwise carefully ordered view.

The visit makes a natural companion to Jupiter Artland. Both places invite attention to how we move through a landscape and what meets us along the way, yet Broadwoodside retains the intimate character of a garden around a home. Its former agricultural buildings remain part of the experience, giving the contemporary work a firm connection to the place.

We return to our hotel in the Borders at the end of the afternoon.

Today we turn towards the coast, travelling to North Berwick and the Scottish Seabird Centre. After three days of gardens, the Firth of Forth brings a welcome change of surroundings, with open water, the harbour and the offshore islands giving the day its character.

Our programme includes a planned boat excursion towards Bass Rock, subject to suitable weather and sea conditions. The rock is known for its gannet colony, and approaching by water offers a perspective that is quite different from seeing it from the shore. The interest lies in the setting as well as the birds: the scale of the rock, its position in the Forth and the movement of wildlife around it. Sightings will depend on the conditions on the day.

We have free time in North Berwick for lunch at your own arrangement. You might choose a café or restaurant in the town, then spend a little time by the harbour or seafront before we continue. This interval allows everyone to enjoy the coast in their own way within the day’s programme.

Later we visit the Johnnie Walker Experience on Princes Street in Edinburgh. This is an urban whisky visitor experience, bringing the story of Scotch into the centre of the city. It adds another aspect of Scotland to a week spent among gardens and landscapes, with an emphasis on the culture and flavours associated with whisky.

We return to Macdonald Cardrona for our final night in the Borders. Tomorrow’s garden visits will bring us back to Edinburgh, where the last two nights of the tour are spent at the Apex Grassmarket Hotel.

We begin at Kailzie Gardens near Peebles, a garden closely connected to its Tweed Valley setting. The walled garden provides a sheltered centre, while woodland and paths beside the Kailzie Burn take us into a softer landscape. Moving between the two gives the visit a variety of pace and atmosphere.

Inside the early nineteenth-century walls, herbaceous borders, productive planting and copper beech hedges surround a historic sundial. The Mackenzie and Moncur glasshouses add another layer of horticultural interest, with summer displays of fuchsias, pelargoniums and other tender plants. The garden’s framework gives us plenty to enjoy beyond any single flower: enclosure, established planting and the way paths connect the different areas.

Beyond the walls, mature and unusual trees contribute to the woodland garden. The burn gives a thread to the walks, with changing light under the canopy and the sound of water accompanying the visit. We also pause for coffee or tea, included in the programme, before continuing to lunch.

Our included lunch is at the Horseshoe Inn in Eddleston, a country pub north of Peebles. It is a chance to sit down together between gardens and enjoy another part of the Borders before travelling on to East Lothian.

At Stobshiel House near Humbie, the garden moves through four principal areas: the walled garden, shrubbery, pond and lawns, and woodland. Each has its own planting and character, with the collection of shrubs and mature trees giving continuity across the property.

Summer interest comes from perennials, roses, clematis and annuals, set against this established background. The variety of spaces allows the garden to reveal itself gradually: enclosed planting gives way to lawn and water, then to the shade and scale of the trees. After the concentration of Kailzie’s walled garden, Stobshiel extends our experience of how different parts of a country garden work together over the season.

We continue to Edinburgh and return to the Apex Grassmarket Hotel for the final two nights. With the country excursions complete, our last full day combines a botanic garden visit with time to enjoy the city independently.

Our final garden visit is to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Here, the pleasures of a garden sit alongside the work of a botanical institution whose living collections support research, education and conservation. It is a fitting place to finish a week that has shown so many different reasons for making and caring for gardens.

The Herbaceous Border, backed by a substantial beech hedge, is particularly rewarding in summer. The hedge provides a continuous green background against which the planting can be seen clearly, bringing a different scale to the border combinations we have enjoyed in private gardens during the week.

The Rock Garden offers another kind of attention. Plants from mountain regions and other rocky habitats are brought together in a landscape where stone, slope and growing conditions matter as much as flower colour. Changes of height create different viewpoints, with Edinburgh’s skyline forming a backdrop from the higher ground.

The Chinese Hillside reflects the institution’s long connections with China and its collections of Chinese plants. Woodland and the arboretum add mature trees and shade to the visit, widening the interest beyond borders. There is much to reward different enthusiasms, whether you are drawn to plant collections, summer planting or the experience of walking through a well-established garden.

After our visit, the afternoon is free in Edinburgh. You may wish to explore the Old Town, visit a museum or gallery, or spend the remaining hours enjoying the city at a slower pace. The hotel’s Grassmarket location makes it a useful base for independent exploring, although Edinburgh’s hills and steps are worth bearing in mind when planning your afternoon.

Independent admissions and activities are at your own arrangement. This final interval leaves room to follow your particular interests before departure tomorrow.

Our tour ends in Edinburgh today. After checking out of the Apex Grassmarket Hotel, continue with your onward travel or extend your stay in Scotland independently.

The week has brought us from an artist’s garden in Inveresk to the botanical collections of Edinburgh, with garden rooms, walled estates, contemporary landscapes and the East Lothian coast along the way. We leave with a varied picture of the Lowlands and the gardens that belong to them.