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The capital’s prize garden, with majestic trees, rock terraces, glasshouses and borders bursting with colour. A delight in every season. Watch out for the calendar of special events, such as music, theatre and exhibitions of contemporary art (see Royal Botanic Garden) .

An exciting outpost of the Edinburgh Botanic, where trees are the speciality. They began planting them here 300 years ago and have never stopped. The diversity is enormous and many specimens now rank as the finest examples of their kind. Ideal for great woodland walks in a particularly lovely part of the Borders.

This formal walled garden is an outstanding example of what was once more common on family estates. Marvellous roses fill the air with fragrance, and there’s a pond stocked with trout where you can try your luck at fishing.

Kailzie Gardens

The Logan boasts the greatest number of exotic species growing outdoors in Scotland. The southern hemisphere is particularly well represented and the palm trees and gunnera have grown to almost jungle proportions. Apart from the climate, there’s a South Pacific feel to the place. It’s usually much quieter than other gardens, too.

The city’s magnificent gardens are especially noted for their glass-houses, packed with exotic plants. Foremost among these is the curved iron framework of the Kibble Palace. A wonderful oasis of palm trees, ferns, orchids and begonias is found inside (see Botanical Gardens) .

A superb woodland garden with one of the country’s most diverse collections of rhododendrons. Many of the seeds were originally gathered on private expeditions around the world and some species are now rare. In May the garden bursts into a brilliant mass of blooms and is worth travelling a long way to see (see Crarae Gardens) .

Overlooking the sea, this garden has another famous rhododendron collection, but also includes exotic blue Tibetan poppies, giant Himalayan lilies and Chatham Island forget-menots. Painstakingly restored to glory by two brothers (see Arduaine Gardens) .

These world-famous gardens were nurtured into astonishing fertility in 1862 by Osgood Mackenzie, and became his life’s work. Exotic plants, shrubs and trees from all over the world, in a stunning location on Loch Ewe (see Inverewe Gardens) .

A totally revolutionary place, the “garden of the future” has no soil but uses water to carry nutrients to the plants. Within this immense greenhouse they grow everything from tropical flowers to bananas (see Hydroponicum, Achiltibuie) .

Originally laid out in a classical French style in 1675, this garden was re-created 50 years ago. Within a vast walled area are four elaborate floral parterres, three of them heraldic designs (see Pitmedden Garden) .