Duchess is a true ray of sunshine...

GREEN-FINGERED Kate has helped create a garden at a children’s hospice – including planting a sunflower in memory of a little boy.

- Richard Palmer

The Duchess of Cambridge also revealed her own children were enjoying a sunflower-growing competition – although Prince George, six, is slightly put out that two-year-old Prince Louis’ plant is the tallest so far.

Kate, 38, who previously designed a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show, had been asked to help develop the outside space at The Nook, a £10million hospice near Norwich that she opened last November.

The Duchess had also helped raise funds for the facility, near her rural residence Anmer Hall, which is run by her patronage East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH).

Dressed in a floral £180 mididress from Faithfull The Brand and £135 wedges from Russell & Bromley, she arrived on Thursday with a variety of plants to transform the patio outside the dining room. Her visit coincided with Children’s Hospice Week, which ends today.

Kate bought her plants during her visit to a garden centre in Fakenham, Norfolk, a week earlier.