History and Restoration of the St. Petersburg Summer Garden: Returning to the Roots

In 2014 the oldest garden in St Petersburg, Russia, the Summer Garden, celebrated three
hundred and ten years since its foundation. The history of the Summer Garden began
in 1704 by order of Tsar Peter the Great, who commissioned numerous talented foreign
and Russian architects and gardeners to design a garden complex around his new palace.
The garden reached its peak in the mid-eighteenth century, but in 1777 was largely
destroyed by a flood, following which it was transformed into one of the most cherished
of St Petersburg’s public spaces. A recent restoration of the Summer Garden (completed
in 2012) was controversial, but it demonstrated the ability and skill of the Russian School
of Historic Gardens Restoration. This paper discusses the history of the Summer Garden
with particular emphasis paid to the dynamics of the garden’s vegetation over three
centuries, together with the principles and results of its latest restoration.