On October 28, 1884, Captain Neil Boyd Mc Eacharn was born in Garlieston to a wealthy Scottish family. He first came to Italy when he was eight years old. In 1928 he set out to search Italy for land that would lend itself to the creation of a large and beautiful garden.

Back in 1931 he decided to purchase the property from the Marchesa di Sant'Elia to transform it into an exemplary English garden that could remind him of his native Scotland. This work had to reconcile two basic needs: aesthetic and botanical. Botanical needs, in that the various vegetations had to find as ideal soil and climate conditions as possible. The creation of the new gardens was completed in 1940.

Seeds and plants were sourced from all over the world: many thousands of plants constitute extremely rare collections.

Today the botanical holdings of Villa Taranto Gardens are vast: they include about 1,000 non-native plants and about 20,000 varieties and species of special botanical value.