It’s easy to get distracted by overcrowded tourist attractions when it comes to planning a holiday, but if you’re interested in plants and discovering horticultural gems, or just love exploring beautiful places, it’s always worth making time to visit a garden.
Across the world, there is a huge array of magical gardens to visit, including botanical wonders created in abandoned villages and on urban railway lines, high-tech ‘supertrees’ and famous scenes depicted in paintings. So, if you’re planning your next getaway or looking for inspiring spots, scroll down to see our must-visit, bucket-list destinations.
Jardin Majorelle, Morocco
Instantly recognisable and immediately memorable, Jardin Majorelle deserves a place on any list of the world’s top gardens to visit. It was created over 40 years by French painter Jacques Majorelle before being bought in 1980 by fashion house co-founders Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. Today, it is celebrated for its boldly coloured Moorish buildings and exotic planting.
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“When you go, you can’t help but get drawn in by that Majorelle blue – it is just so rich and so exotic,” says garden designer Manoj Malde. “They have teamed this very vivid yellow with it, in small amounts, and a little bit of orange. It is just the most stunning garden.”
Lotusland, California, USA
Lotusland – or Ganna Walska Lotusland, named after its visionary founder – is one of the most celebrated gardens on the planet. Unfolding over 37 acres, it contains numerous inspiring garden ‘rooms’, including a blue garden, olive avenue and topiary garden, and spaces dedicated to aloe, cacti, bromeliads and rare cycads.
Garden designer Matthew Wilson says, “It’s the most extraordinary combination of garden rooms and each room seems to be more bonkers than the one before. Alice-In-Wonderland-shaped topiaries, and then you’ll go into another room and it’s dazzling white clamshell water features and there are herbaceous borders, but they’re planted with cacti.”
It’s also top of garden designer Manoj Malde’s bucket list. “The garden is actually a plantsman’s paradise because there are so many different varieties of plants growing there.”
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Gardens by the Bay, Singapore
With its towering solar-panelled ‘supertrees’ and shell-like cooled conservatories, you can’t fail to be impressed by the skyline of the Gardens of the Bay in Singapore. It’s made up of three main gardens, with an almost two-mile waterfront promenade, and the conservatories alone are home to over 1.5 million plants from around the world.
Throughout the year, visitors can enjoy festivals, concerts, film screenings, sports events and educational workshops, as well as horticultural celebrations like Tulipmania.
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, UK
The history of Sissinghurst in Kent stretches back to when the site was used as a Saxon pig farm, but it is the work of its 1930s owners – poets and writers Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson – that inspires visitors today. A climb to the top of the Tower gives the best view of Sissinghurst’s 10 abundantly planted garden rooms and the wider 450-acre estate.
In recent years, the team have been working to recreate the Delos garden first dreamed up after Vita and Harold were inspired by a trip to the Greek island of Delos. The final phase of work will finish later this year.
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Kirstenbosch, South Africa
Just seven miles from the centre of Cape Town with views of the famous, flat-topped Table Mountain, is Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, with its huge array of colourful exotic plants. This unique garden is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is a place of conservation for many endangered plants.
Across the garden’s 1,300 acres are several distinct spaces, including the inspiring Water-Wise garden, showcasing low-water gardening, and the Protea Garden, home to South Africa’s national flower, the king protea.
The High Line, New York, USA
Once an abandoned railway line and destined for demolition, the High Line has become a must-visit spot in New York since its restoration. The garden zones span woodland, grasslands, meadow and wetlands – created by famous Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf and inspired by the self-seeded landscape that grew there for a quarter of a century.
Take a wander across the High Line and enjoy views of New York’s iconic skyline, the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty.
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Ninfa, Italy
Often thought of as one of the most romantic gardens in the world, Ninfa is a previously abandoned town just south of Rome, now transformed into a thriving garden thanks to its twentieth-century owners.
Garden designer Isabel Bannerman has revealed her love of Ninfa: “It's got the gin-like stream running through ruined buildings and bridges, and everything is cloaked in rambling roses.”
Kyoto Temple Gardens, Japan
Kyoto is renowned for its many tranquil temple gardens, some of which are open to the public and well worth a visit. While the focus is often on natural elements like rocks and moss, as opposed to lush planting, you’ll find gardens of many different styles and with interesting features, such as a moss checkerboard at Tōfuku-ji.
Giverny, France
During the seven months it opens every year, 500,000 people visit Claude Monet’s famous garden in Giverny, France. Most people will be familiar with the iconic water garden and its Japanese bridge and waterlilies, but a trip there also provides the opportunity to explore the Clos Normand in front of the house; a colourful flower garden with ornamental trees, climbing roses and banks of vibrant annuals.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Victoria, Australia
Here are two botanic gardens to explore if you’re in Victoria in south-east Australia. The Royal Botanic Gardens champion conservation; at the Melbourne site visitors can see a huge selection of plants including varieties from south-eastern Australia and from Southern China, and a Rare and Threatened Species Collection.
Explore Cranbourne gardens for its natural bushland experience with over 450 indigenous plant species and more than six miles of walking tracks.
Great Dixter, UK
Hailed as one of the UK’s most inspiring plots and a frontrunner in gardening for biodiversity and sustainability, Great Dixter is a must-see for keen gardeners. While the house dates back to the fifteenth century, the gardens are the star of the show.
Don’t miss iconic sights such as the Long Border (shown here), the Peacock Garden with its 18 famous topiary birds, and the orchard meadow, complete with crocuses, daffodils and four kinds of orchid.
Villandry, France
The Chateau de Villandry has been open to visitors since the 1920s, after the Spanish medical researcher Joachim Carvallo bought it and transformed the grounds into the Renaissance gardens they are today. Explore seven distinct spaces, including the Ornamental Kitchen Garden, the Sun Garden and the Water Garden, as well as the Maze.
Chatsworth, UK
Chatsworth, home to the Devonshire family for almost 500 years, is surely one of the UK’s most impressive stately homes – with gardens to match. The 105 acres include an arboretum and pinetum, glasshouses and a water cascade, but the biggest change of the past 200 years is the transformation of the rock garden, maze borders and trout stream; part of Chatsworth’s Arcadia project.
Madeira Botanical Gardens
These bold gardens are on the archipelago of Madeira, just north of the Canary Islands. They cover around 20 acres and feature more than 2,000 exotic plants from across the world, including endangered species. Madeira’s Botanical Gardens are instantly recognisable for their colourful planting beds in geometric patterns.
Chanticleer, Pennsylvania, USA
Although originally a summer retreat for its owners to escape the Philadelphia heat, Chanticleer and 35 of its 50 acres of gardens have been open to the public since 1993.
The gardens are divided into several areas with distinct themes, from the seasonal and tropical plants in the Teacup Garden and terraces, to the hardy perennials found in the Pond and Gravel gardens. Wander through the Asian Woods to admire plants native to China, Korea and Japan; Bell’s Woodland for eastern North American species; and the Serpentine for agricultural crops.
Schloss Wörlitz, Germany
Often considered to be the first example of an English-style landscape park in mainland Europe, the eighteenth-century gardens of Schloss Wörlitz have been hugely influential. They were created more than 200 years ago and feature a variety of buildings across five garden zones, connected with paths, trees, waterways and sculptures.
Visitors can also tour the main house, which displays art and artefacts from all over the world.
The Alhambra, Spain
Dating back to the fourteenth century, the Alhambra was once a royal residence for Spain’s last Muslim dynasty, and showcases preserved Moorish architecture and design. Stroll the complex of gardens to discover beautifully planted courtyards and terraces, shaped topiary and intricate stone sculptures and fountains.
Villa d’Este
To admire Baroque, Renaissance and Romantic garden influences, make a trip to Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como in northern Italy. The villa itself was built in the sixteenth century as a domestic residence, but is now a luxury hotel. Among the 24 acres of gardens, wander through groves of chestnut, magnolia and citrus trees, and admire atmospheric gardens of peonies, camellias and wisteria, as well as sculpted topiary and fountains.
