Where better to celebrate the coronation than in a majestic garden? From the King's own plant paradise to splendid Elizabethan roses, explore Britain's top 10 royal gardens
Highgrove Gardens
Gloucestershire
World famous for its unique gardens, each with their own distinctive style and story, Highgrove is a glorious testament to the gardening passion of Charles III. For the past 40 years, foremost garden designers have worked alongside the-then Prince of Wales to bring his visions to life in this most personal of royal landscapes.
In spring and early summer, Highgrove greets its visitors with the spangled mauves, whites and yellows of orchid, buttercup, alliums and wild parsley in the 1.5-hectare Wild adow. It is a testament to the King's organic principles and his early collaboration with the pioneering naturalist Miriam Rothschild.
The meadow is cut for hay in in autumn and then grazed by sheep, who create a moving tableau, framed by the fastigiate hornbeams that bring formality to this rural scene.
Quirky topiary frames the views of the house itself down the long Thyme Walk, with plump pudding shapes in golden yew. A snail, a spiral and - of course - a crown owe their individuality to each gardener being given a bush to shape. Drawing on traditional English gardening, the Old and New Cottage Gardens also surprise, with inspiration drawn from the colours of Tibet in a planting scheme designed by Charles III and the late Rosemary Verey, doyenne of English horticulture.
A Victorian-inspired stumpery of ferns and upturned roots by award-winning designers Julian and Isabel Bannerman provides a damp green setting for a magnificent Gunnera manicata set atop a two-metre stone tower. Emerging from the deep shade on to oak-dappled lawn, David Wynne's sculpture 'Goddess of the Woods' sits contemplating temples aptly crafted from green oak.
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