Scotland Travel Blog September 2025

"Secret Gardens" in Scotland worth visiting

Scotland, thanks to its climate, has a great choice of gardens that are worth considering when planning your driving tour. Some, such as Inverewe Gardens near Gairloch, are key attractions on the North Coast 500. But some of the best gardens are the “secret” ones that aren’t on the mainstream tourist trails.

These are our top 5 Gardens, and we've selected them because they all offer something different. These gardens represent a mix of traditional and experimental, formal and haphazard, but they are all gardens that offer you a place to escape to a different world from their surroundings. Some of these gardens are only open a few days a year, some are hidden away in quiet city suburbs, and some are overlooked because they take a bit of effort to get to.

• 5th Happy Valley
• 4th Dundee Botanic Gardens
• 3rd Japanese Garden at Cowden
• 2nd Branklyn Gardens
• 1st Bargany Gardens

Happy Valley, Orkney

Most of Orkney is devoid of trees, so it comes as a surprise when you discover that there is somewhere on the island where you can walk through a wooded glade where daffodils and bluebells thrive, and the trees aren’t stunted by northern winds.

The place is known to the locals as “Happy Valley”, but you won’t find it signposted or marked on an Ordnance Survey Map. We think the locals prefer to keep it this way as it helps to preserve its tranquil atmosphere. The existence of this garden is down to an Orcadian gentleman called Edwin Harrold who lived in the little cottage at the heart of the Gardens from 1948 until his death in 2005 at the age of 98.

When Edwin moved into the cottage, it had been abandoned for 8 years and had no running water, no electricity and nothing much around it apart from open fields. So Edwin set about cultivating a garden and redirecting a stream to provide him with hydro-electric power. The small dam that he built is still a feature of the Garden, but it is so elegant that you might assume it was meant to be an artistic water feature.

Over the years, Edwin successfully managed to introduce a wide range of deciduous trees, fruit-bearing trees and woodland flowers. His good work is now continued by volunteers who have set up a charity called the “Friends of Happy Valley”. It’s a lovely testament to the life of a man who left a legacy that will hopefully bring pleasure to others for many years to come.

Dundee Botanic Gardens

Dundee is a city that is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and its waterfront boasts some excellent tourist attractions such as the new V&A Museum and the Discovery Point exhibition. But visitors to Dundee often miss its Botanic Gardens as they are hidden away in a residential corner of the city. We had visited Dundee many times before we first thought of exploring the city’s Botanic Gardens. And, when we first visited them, it was because we were looking for something to do to kill an hour or two before checking in at our accommodation. We were pleasantly surprised by what we found.

No one is going to claim that this garden rivals the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, but it does feature a hothouse where you can escape the cold of a Scottish December day. And if you need something warm inside you, they have a cafe that’s popular with the locals thanks to its reasonable prices.

The gardens have a section which recreates a Highland landscape with a stream running through a rocky landscape of heathers and wild grasses. You literally feel like you’ve been transported back to a time before the city of Dundee was built.

The gardens also feature some pieces of modern artwork, with a particularly attractive series of coloured glass panels that represent the four seasons.

But some of the artwork is simple, such as a cluster of Beech trees wrapped with multiple strands of coloured wool. Inexpensive, but very striking.

Japanese Garden at Cowden, near Dollar, Clackmannanshire

Nestling below the Ochil Hills, and just a couple of miles east of the village of Dollar, you can visit a garden that gives you a taste of Japanese Culture.

The Japanese Garden at Cowden was started in 1908 as a private haven for Ella Christie, a bold and well-traveled Edwardian lady. Ella’s globe-trotting took her to Kyoto where she fell in love with the city’s gardens and decided she had to try to recreate one on her family estate back in Scotland. Ella was a lady of means and was able to employ the services of Taki Hand, a Japanese Landscape designer, to assist with transforming a boggy field on the Cowden estate into a little piece of Japan. 

Ella named her garden Sha Raku En, which translates as “the garden of pleasure and delight”. The focus of the garden is a large pond in which you find some smaller islands connected by bridges and staggered walkways that appear to hover above the water.

Around the pond, there are some karesanui (Rock Gardens) and a collection of buildings in the Japanese vernacular. There are also woodland walks and an adventure playpark for children, but the focal point of the gardens is the pond and the areas adjacent to it. 

The gardens are open from April to late October, and they operate a time slot system to control the visitor numbers, so it is wise to pre-book your tickets. It’s an unexpected little gem within a 30 minute drive of Stirling.

Branklyn Gardens, Perth

Branklyn Gardens covers an area of just 2 acres and is one of the smallest gardens in the custodianship of the National Trust for Scotland. It’s the small scale of these gardens that makes them feel so intimate and charming. The gardens are tucked away in a suburb of Perth that clings to the lower slopes of Kinnoul Hill. The entrance to the gardens is accessed via a bit of a back lane, so whilst it isn’t a secret, it does feel quite hidden.

The garden was originally the private project of John & Dorothy Renton who lived here in the 1920’s. They started to develop the garden as their own private space where they could cultivate plants from around the world and, in particular, species from mountainous regions.

Despite its relatively modest size, the garden feels much larger than it actually is due to the dense planting and the multitude of little paths that wander through the grounds. It seems that there is a vast number of permutations and combinations of routes to explore.

A lovely feature of the gardens is the Tearoom which is attached to the original 1920’s home of John & Dorothy. The tearoom is very quaint and decorated in a nostalgic style that feels very much in keeping with the 1920’s period of the house. If I lived in Perth, I think I would make a habit of visiting Branklyn to relax on a favourite bench with a pot of Earl Grey and a good book.

Bargany, near Dailly in Ayrshire

We saved our favourite until last. Bargany gardens only open during May, when the Azaeleas and Rhododendrons are at their peak. The riot of colours on display makes it worth the annual wait.

Bargany has been a home for the Hamilton family since the early 1600’s, and descendants of the original owners still reside in the “New House” that dates from 1681. The house is an elegant building set in a Claudian landscape, but it was nearly knocked down in the 1980s. Fortunately, the demolition plans were refused, and the building was saved by a major restoration project.

The gardens that you see today were laid out in stages between the 1770s and 1820s. So, they are much more traditional in design than the other gardens listed above. Credit has to go to the current Dalrymple-Hamilton family for the excellent work they do in maintaining the gardens to such a high standard. For a modest entry fee, you can walk around the extensive grounds of the Bargany Estate and feel like Lord and Lady of the Manor. The only part of the estate that is out of bounds is the immediate environs of Bargany House, but we don’t grudge the family their privacy when they are giving the public access to such a beautiful place.

The highlight of the gardens is the pond with its old wooden boathouse surrounded by colourful rhododendrons. The pond with its abundance of water lilies and vibrant spring blossoms, provides a spectacular centrepiece for photographers.

For more recommendations about gardens to visit, you should read our article about Scotland's most popular Botanic Gardens in the Highlands.