Located behind Register House, to the east of New Register House in the centre of Edinburgh, the Archivists' Garden was opened on 25th June 2010 by broadcaster Jim McColl (b. 1935) of BBC Scotland's Beechgrove Garden.
The garden was designed to explore the cultural role of plants in people's lives and suggest the randomness of human memory and replicate the flowing shapes on the surface of the brain, contrasting with the records filed, indexed and ordered in the two adjacent buildings. More than 50 plant species have been chosen to represent the value of the information kept by the National Records of Scotland; life events (birth, marriage or death), famous Scots, and cultural symbols and heraldry, and tartans (through plant dyes).
The garden was conceived by David Mitchell, a curator at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and designed by Gross Max, award-winning landscape architects based in the city.