Thomas Blaikie was raised in Scotland (Corstorphine, near Edinburgh) and sent abroad in 1775 to look for alpine plants in Switzerland. He later settled in Paris and designed the gardens at Malmaison and Bagatelle, and Winter Garden for the Duc de Chartres at Monceau. Blaikie's Diary of a Scotch Gardener at the French Court at the End of the Eighteenth Century was published in 1931 and formed the basis for Patricia Taylor, Thomas Blaikie (1751-1838): The 'Capability' Brown of France (East Linton: Tuckwell, 2001).
