06-05-2025
The 25 Essential Gardens to See in Your Lifetime
Gardens from 20 countries were nominated, with Italy and the United Kingdom coming out on top; each ended up with five on the final list, followed by France with four. Unsurprisingly, the panel was particularly interested in the differences among the styles favored by various cultures, from meticulously groomed Asian stroll gardens to more naturalistic English cottage borders. The impact of colonialism on landscape design was also a topic of discussion, as was the focus on native plants in several African, South American and Australian projects. A few gardens were disqualified for practical reasons: The owners of one eccentric, privately owned sculpture garden in Britain, for example, asked to be left off the list for fear of overcrowding. Others, like Claude Monet's Giverny in France, were deemed too obvious or too packed with tourists to wholeheartedly recommend. Ultimately, while the jurists have all traveled extensively, visiting gardens around the world, none of them had seen, or even heard of, every nomination. In some instances, they had to defer to their fellow experts and take a leap of faith — something that, as gardeners, they're well accustomed to doing. A garden, said the British horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), who designed one of the gardens in our top 25, 'teaches entire trust.' — Alexa Brazilian
This conversation has been edited and condensed. Though numbered, the entries below aren't ranked; the gardens appear roughly in the order in which they were discussed.
