About Gardenvisit.com

Gardenvisit.com was launched in the Dotcom Era (1998) by Tom Turner (MA, Dip LA, MLI), a landscape architect and garden historian based in London, UK. The website has grown in size and scope while continuing to reflect Tom's interests: travel, garden design, landscape architecture and landscape planning. The full online text of several books by Tom Turner is included on the website: English Garden Design (ACC, 1986), Landscape Planning (Hutchinson,1987; Spon, 1998), City as Landscape (1997) (see History Theory > eBooks).

The Gardenvisit.com website was re-launched in 2007 with over 10,000 pages of text and 10,000 images - and the aims unchanged. We link information about places to information about garden and landscape design: history, philosophy, styles, construction, materials, design methods, planting and designers. Information enriches a visitor's experience and is of value when designing gardens and landscapes. Since the history and theory of garden design is inextricably bound with that of public landscapes, the scope of the website includes the broader scales of  landscape architecture and planning. Both garden design and landscape architecture are concerned with the composition of landform, buildings, water, vegetation and paving to achieve technical, social and aesthetic objectives (see Compositional Elements)

The Garden Finder provides details of places to visit throughout the world, some in public ownership and others in private ownership (including hotels, spas, resorts and other commercial organizations) and with the information hyperlinked to histories of garden design and landscape architecture, including: online books, biographies, a directory of garden and landscape designers, a glossary of garden and landscape terms, a design product finder and a range of articles on the history, theory and design methods of the garden design and landscape architecture professions. In March 2008, we introduced a system which allows garden managers to update details of opening times etc and to supply additional information. In time, this will provide three opinions of each garden: from the website editors, from the Head Gardener and reviews from garden visitors.

The website is managed by an Editor, a Technical Manager and a Content Manager with additional volunteer help. We give warm thanks to our contributors.

Please address enquiries to our administrative assistant: Daisie Maud - there is a Contact Us link at the foot of every webpage.

Also see News from GardenVisit.com, Blog post on Gardenvisit.com's 10th Birthday.

Gardenvisit Editorial Policy

Gardenvisit editorial content aims to be accurate, clearly expressed and fair. We also welcome content from users, including comments on the Blog, Reviews of Gardens, Reviews of Nurseries, Reviews of Information Pages, Articles on Special Topics etc. Review content is checked before publication, to remove spam, abuse, bad language etc, but we welcome the expression of individual opinions. If you disagree with a reviewer's opinion, or wish to correct a fact, please respond by adding your own review.

Use of images on Gardenvisit.com

We are grateful to many users of the Gardenvisit website for supplying us with images. These images are used editorially: we do not sell them and we believe their use is not ‘commercial’. This principle is applied to images made available on Flickr under the Creative Commons license.  However, since the definition of ‘commercial’ is ambiguous, imprecise and subject to interpretation, we are always happy to take down Creative Commons images if requested to do so. An important section (4b) in the Creative Commons/Non-Commercial license is that works should not be used in a way 'that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation' and ' there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the exchange of copyrighted works'. Our Garden Finder, for example, is not 'primarily intended' for commercial advantage. Its primary purpose is to provide a free service to garden visitors. When we use creative commons images we make no charge to garden owners who have garden visiting information on our website. Nor do we ever use All Rights Reserved images without explicit permission from the copyright holder. Having contacted many Flickr users, we have often had this interpretation confirmed. We, and they, regard the Creative Commons license as giving permission for this type of use - providing the copyright holder is acknowledged. Many Flickr users tell us that the Creative Commons category also tell us that use of images in a commercial book – but we seek explicit permission for this. Our understanding is that 'Commercial' involves sale of the image (e.g. in a printed photograph, a printed book, an eBook, a T-shirt, a postcard, or on a paywall-protected website). Our Garden Finder involves much editorial work and is definitely not a 'commercial' product or a product offered for sale. Some Gardenvisit webages lead to cost-recovery but not to commercial profits. We regret the ambiguity in the CC/NC License and urge anyone who does not wish their images to be used on websites to use the All Rights Reserved category.

Gardenvisit.com logo design

See blog post on  Niwt symbol: ancient Egyptian city determinative hieroglyph