Scotland’s Gardens Scheme was founded in 1931 to raise money for the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland, to help support the Queen’s Nurses, before the creation of the National Health Service.

The charity raises funds for hundreds of charities each year, powered by amazing teams of volunteers and garden owners around Scotland, through garden gate tickets, plants sales and teas.

Colliston is a 16th century ‘z plan’ castle, built by Cardinal Beaton with a later Victorian addition. The gardens, neglected in past years, have been attacked and the overgrown wilderness has regained some form.

The garden is in its infancy with a new, small walled garden and the beginnings of a formal garden with box hedging and a rose bed. The rest of the ten acres is mostly parkland with large specimen trees including a Wellingtonia. Large rhododendrons survive from the castle’s previous gardens with an abundance of daffodils.

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