Scottish Garden Design Competition
The Scottish Garden Design Competition gives designers from across the country the opportunity to challenge their horticultural knowledge and skills by creating a show garden that will be on display at the Scone Palace Garden Fair.
Each year a new theme is set which is open to interpretation by each gardener, offering endless possibilities for creativity and expression. Whether it’s through vibrant plant choices, innovative sculptural features, or thoughtful use of space.
Check back later for more information on the 2026 competition.
Small Space Gardens
The Small Space Gardens category challenges budding amateurs, hobbyists, and students to produce stunning creations on a small scale. The 10 finalists will be in a bid to claim the prize of Best Small Space Garden, as well as the People's Choice Award, voted for by visitors.
Showcase Gardens
The Showcase Gardens demonstrate the very best of the Scottish garden design and landscaping community with a large scale Showcase Garden and longer build time.
We wish this to be the showcase for the many talented garden designers and landscapers we have working in our country, featuring excellence and imagination in the designs, plants chosen, and materials used.
The uniqueness of the Showcase Gardens category is that these will not only be on show for the duration of the Scone Palace Garden Fair, but the three finalists' gardens will remain in the gardens for 9 months. This will provide a greater challenge to the designer who must consider how the garden will be viewed not only by visitors to the event, but also during the other seasons of the year by the 100,000 visitors who visit Scone Palace annually.
