Inside Buckingham Palace gardens

The gardens are home to over 1,000 trees, including 98 mature London plane trees, two of these majestic specimens are called the Victoria and Albert trees. So called because one was planted by Queen Victoria and the other by Prince Albert, more than 150 years ago. No one knows who planted which.

The trees stand by the northern corner of the Palace and in front of the herbaceous border, which is one of the highlights of the garden in summer and autumn.

Herbaceous border

The herbaceous border is 512ft long and 16ft deep. Planted to look its best in summer, it is a riot of colours and textures. There is very little repetition in the border, despite its size, so that with every step you see something different.

The height of the planting makes it look as if the border is planted on a slope, but in fact it’s just the mass of plants.

This border is constantly evolving, both as the plants grow and change through the seasons, and from year to year. Just this year, 31 new plant varieties have been added to this border, including many chosen to attract pollinating insects, including Echinops bannaticus ‘Star Frost’, Echinacea 'Marmalade', Phlomis russeliana, Aster novae-angliae Barrs Pink.

Sweet peas from this border were frequently used in posies for the late Queen Elizabeth II. Every Monday, when the Queen was in residence, a small bouquet of blooms from the garden would be placed on her Majesty’s writing table.

The herbaceous border is also home to some rather more exotic plants, such as bananas. Although these are tender plants, the city-centre location of this garden means they survive over winter, with a covering of straw.

The gardens here are completely peat-free, and have been for many years. A Recycling Centre was established in the garden in 1991 at Queen Elizabeth II’s request. It recycles 99 per cent of all green waste from London’s royal gardens. The gardeners compost on site and use it as mulch across the beds in the garden.

As you come to the end of the herbaceous border, you reach a path known as the Queen’s Walk, which takes you to one of the other jewels in the crown of this garden in summer – the rose garden.

Rose garden

The rose garden looks Victorian in style, but actually dates from the 1960s, and was the creation of Harry Wheatcroft, a famous English rose grower from Nottingham. Roses from this garden are regularly used by the Royal Florist, for arrangements in the Palace and for important public occasions, such as state visits.

There are 25 beds, each containing 60 bushes of a single variety of rose. No two adjacent beds are of a similar colour, to allow each rose to be properly appreciated. A large proportion of the roses are hybrid teas, there are also roses trained as standards and climbing roses trained up obelisks, and along a colonnade.

The roses are chosen for their fragrance, colour and disease-resistance, and many have special meanings. Such as:

• Mum in a Million roses were used on the casket of the late Queen.
• Queen Elizabeth II which was created for Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum Jubilee.
• Royal William created to celebrate the birth of Prince William.

Beyond the formal Rose Garden are two large rose beds planted in a looser style. One of these is home to the rose ‘Golden Wedding’, given to Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh by members of the public to mark their Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1997.

The roses are in immaculate condition. To maintain the Rose Garden’s flawless condition, every year one of the rose beds is completely replanted. The bed is dug to a depth of about 75cm (30in) and replaced with fresh soil to avoid the risk of rose replant disease.

Deadheading is a key priority for the gardeners in summer, as is maintaining the neat lawn edges to these beds and keeping them weed free. The roses are pruned annually in November – which is earlier than many of us would prune our roses, a task more commonly done around February. But this is to encourage the roses to bloom at their best in May, for the garden parties.

Traditionally, the monarch hosts three Garden Parties a year at Buckingham Palace, for which marquees are erected on the main lawn. Each is attended by 8,000 guests, from all walks of life, who are invited in thanks for their extraordinary work in service of charities and the community. At each party around 27,000 cups of tea, 20,000 sandwiches and 20,000 slices of cake will be consumed.

Visit Highgrove with Alan Titchmarsh

Join Alan Titchmarsh at Highgrove Gardens on Tuesday 14 October, on an exclusive tour of His Majesty King Charles' private garden. After your tour, you’ll enjoy prosecco and canapés, followed by a delicious three-course dinner. Book Highgrove tickets now.

Waterloo Vase

Towering over the rose garden is the white Carrara marble Waterloo Vase, by Sir Richard Westmacott. It weighs an estimated 19 tonnes and is 5.5m (18ft) tall. It was commissioned by the French Emperor Napoleon in anticipation of his success in battle, but after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815 it was presented to the future King George IV. The vase proved too heavy to be housed in Windsor Castle and in 1835 William IV presented it to the National Gallery (then under construction), the vase was eventually brought to the garden at Buckingham Palace in 1906.

The Waterloo vase is one of the many treasures cared for by the Royal Collection Trust. The charity that manages and conserves the Royal Collection art collection and looks after visitors to the royal palaces. From early July to late September, the Summer Opening of the Palace allows the public to see inside the Palace and take a tour of some of the most beautiful areas of the gardens. Proceeds from tickets go towards the care and conservation of the art collection, to ensure that the Collection and the Palaces can continue to be enjoyed by everyone.

Visit Buckingham Palace gardens

You can visit the gardens at Buckingham Palace as part of the state summer opening. Book tickets to Buckingham Palace.

Visitors to the garden can’t fail to be impressed by its largest feature – a 3.5 acre lake, surrounded by weeping willows and home to numerous ducks and geese. In the centre there is an island, filled with wildflowers, grasses and flowering shrubs, this uncultivated haven is as natural a habitat as you can get in the city, and is home to the garden’s five beehives.

The garden’s meadows, which were once grazed by cows and goats, and are now home to more than 320 different types of wildflowers and grasses, and 50 types of bird. It is home to many native trees – such as English oak, white willow, hawthorn, alder, ash, beech and silver birch.

The gardeners at Buckingham Palace are keen to understand more about the wildlife that use the garden, and what that can tell us about the health of our nation's wildlife generally. To that end they are monitoring the wildlife in the royal parks and gardens, including birds, bats, plants and invertebrates, as well as monitoring soil health, water and habitats.

They are monitoring butterflies, in particular, because they provide a good indication of the broad state of the environment. This is because they respond rapidly to changes in environmental conditions and habitat management, occur in a wide range of habitats, and are representative of many other insects in that they utilise areas with abundant plant food resources.

Birds that use the Buckingham Palace garden include a sparrowhawk, a green woodpecker (which feeds on meadow ants), and blackbirds. There are also around 40 nest boxes in the garden of which over 60 per cent are used.

Mulberry trees were first planted in the garden by King James I in 1608, in an attempt to cultivate silk worms. Mulberries were recently reintroduced to the garden, but this time for their fruit. Since 2000 the garden has held the National Collection of Mulberries.

See inside King Charles' Highgrove Garden

Watch Alan Titchmarsh's tour of King Charles' private garden at Highgrove. He interviews the head gardener Melissa, to discover the secret to creating a garden fit for a king.