This is a list of people noted for their contribution to gardening, either by working as gardeners or garden designers, or by commissioning famous gardens.
It does not include the innumerable people who count gardening among their hobbies.
The list follows gardeners or garden designers by occupation. It includes garden designers and landscape gardeners involved chiefly in garden design, and expert writers or broadcasters on the subject.
Other people whose primary profession was not gardening have made notable contributions to horticulture by planning or commissioning significant gardens.
A rock garden, also known as a rockery and formerly as a rockwork, is a garden, or more often a part of a garden, with a landscaping framework of rocks, stones, and gravel, with planting appropriate to this setting. Usually these are small Alpine plants that need relatively little soil or water. Western rock gardens are often divided into alpine gardens, scree gardens on looser, smaller stones, and other rock gardens.
William Saunders was a horticulturist, landscape designer and nurseryman. During his long career, Saunders designed the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg, planned and developed the Washington DC park system, authored hundreds of articles on horticulture and introduced numerous plant species into the United States, significantly impacting the nation's agricultural economy. He was one of the first landscape architects to be employed by the federal government and spent thirty-eight years working for the US Department of Agriculture. He was also one of the founders of the National Grange, or Patrons of Husbandry.
John Claudius Loudon was a Scottish botanist, garden designer and author. He was the first to use the term arboretum in writing to refer to a garden of plants, especially trees, collected for the purpose of scientific study. He was married to Jane Webb, a fellow horticulturalist, and author of science-fiction, fantasy, horror, and gothic stories.
William Robert Guilfoyle was an English landscape gardener and botanist in Victoria, Australia, acknowledged as the architect of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne and was responsible for the design of many parks and gardens in Melbourne and regional Victoria.
A plantsman is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener, nurseryman or nurserywoman. "Plantsman" can refer to a male or female person, though the terms plantswoman, or even plantsperson, are sometimes used. The word is sometimes said to be synonymous with "botanist" or "horticulturist", but that would indicate a professional involvement, whereas "plantsman" reflects an attitude to plants. A horticulturist may be a plantsman, but a plantsman is not necessarily a horticulturist.
A garden designer is someone who designs the plan and features of gardens, either as an amateur or professional. The compositional elements of garden design and landscape design are: terrain, water, planting, constructed elements and buildings, paving, site characteristics and genius loci, and the local climatic qualities.
The Landscape Institute (LI) is a UK based professional body for the landscape profession. Its membership includes landscape architects, urban designers, landscape planners, landscape scientists and landscape managers. The LI also has a category for academic members.
Sir Geoffrey Allan Jellicoe was an English architect, town planner, landscape architect, garden designer, landscape and garden historian, lecturer and author. His strongest interest was in landscape and garden design.
Montague Russell Page OBE was a British gardener, garden designer and landscape architect. He worked in the UK, western Europe and the United States of America.
The Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) is awarded to British horticulturists resident in the United Kingdom whom the Royal Horticultural Society Council considers deserving of special honour by the Society.
Piet Oudolf is a Dutch garden designer, nurseryman and author. He is a leading figure of the "New Perennial" movement – his designs and plant compositions using bold drifts of herbaceous perennials and grasses which are chosen at least as much for their structure as for their flower color.
Gertrude Hartland (1865–1954) was an Irish illustrator and landscape painter. From County Cork, other members of the Hartland family were involved in horticulture and art, and she was primarily known for illustrations and paintings of flowers.
Roger Turner is a British garden designer and writer of gardening-related non-fiction books. He trained as an architect, and now practises as a garden designer in Gloucestershire. He lectures widely on garden subjects, and is the author of several gardening books.
A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby.
Lawson is often a Scottish surname that may sometimes also be a given name.
William Dunlop Brackenridge (1810–1893) was a British-American nurseryman and botanist.
George Nicholson, was an English botanist and horticulturist, amongst 60 awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897 for their contributions to horticulture. He is noted for having edited "The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening", produced as an eight-part alphabetical series between 1884 and 1888 with a supplement, and published by L. Upcott Gill of London. It was also published in New York in 1889 by The American Agriculturist in 4 Volumes.
Gardening in Scotland, the design of planned spaces set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature in Scotland began in the Middle Ages.
James Smith of Monkwood Grove was a Scottish botanist and nurseryman. He founded the Monkwood Botanic Garden in Maybole Parish which included several thousand species of exotic and native British plants. A regular consultant of his English contemporaries, he is credited with the discovery of Primula scotica,Salix caprea pendula and several other species of plants native to Scotland. Owing to this particular interest in the flora of Scotland, Smith has been described as the "father of Scottish botany."
Writing about gardens takes a variety of literary forms, ranging from instructional manuals on horticulture and garden design, to essays on gardening, to novels. Garden writing has been published in English since at least the 16th century.
