On April 5 (March 25, old style), 1704, the first mention of the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg occurred.

“As soon as you receive my letter, please, without missing a beat, send all sorts of flowers from Izmailovo, not little by little, but more of those that smell, to send with the gardener to St. Petersburg.”

This order was received by the head of the Discharge Order Tikhon Streshnev from Peter I in the spring of 1704. At the beginning of June of the same year, carts with plants for planting in the royal garden had already arrived in St. Petersburg. The history of the creation of the royal summer residence – the Summer Garden – began.

Peter chose the site for his summer stay in St. Petersburg, which was under construction, back in May 1703. From the point of view of Peter I, the place for a house and garden is ideal. It is surrounded by water on three sides: from the north by the Neva River, from the south by the Mya (Moika) River, and from the east by the Bezymyanny Erik (Fontanka) channel. The territory has already been developed, there is a house with outbuildings and a small garden in the Dutch style on the site of the former estate of the Swedish officer Konau.
The initial stage of work was led by Ivan Matveev (Urgumov). Under his leadership, a wooden Summer Palace was built for Peter, the first fountains were built, and a water wheel was installed on the river.

Gardeners sent from Moscow gardens, as well as Swedish captured soldiers, were planting trees with perennial flowers and growing herbs.

The first foreign garden master in the Summer Garden was Johann Jaftman or, as he was called in Russian, Ivan Yakovlev. A native of Narva, he entered the sovereign service as a garden foreman in 1704. In 1709 he was transferred from Moscow to the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg. As Ivan Yakovlev himself wrote about his work in the Summer Garden: “He was taken to St. Petersburg to build a garden near the Summer Palace, which he built and planted all sorts of fruitful and wild trees, and brought that garden into proper condition.”

Through the efforts of Russian and foreign garden masters, gardeners, as well as the inexhaustible energy of Peter I, by 1715 the Summer Garden occupied its entire modern territory. According to the descriptions of contemporaries, the Summer Garden at that time was well maintained, decorated with fountains and sculptures and made a good impression on visitors.

Now the Summer Garden is the only representative of Russia in the European Association of Heritage Gardens.