Spring has finally arrived and an avid gardener’s fantasy turns to… pruning.
Especially at Highgrove, the country home of the King and Queen in Gloucestershire.
Here, a team of gardeners are carefully grooming the boxwoods and golden yews, which have been trimmed over many years into eccentric shapes including proud peacocks, stately wreaths and ornate spheres.
Work continued yesterday ahead of tomorrow’s World Topiary Day, which celebrates the horticultural art of training and pruning shrubs and trees into clearly defined shapes.
A team of gardeners are carefully grooming the boxwoods and golden yews, which for many years have been trimmed into eccentric shapes, including proud peacocks.
The King has remarked that ‘one of my great joys is seeing the pleasure that the garden can give’
The gardens have been created to “please the eye and sit in harmony with nature.”
In line with the King’s interest in sustainability, gardeners do not use insecticides and make their own fertilizer
Visitors to Highgrove can enjoy an impressive avenue of hedges and topiaries, drawing attention to the house and its terrace. The gardens welcome tens of thousands of visitors between April and October each year.
Tours of the grounds help fund the King’s Foundation, a charity set up by King Charles to offer workshops and short courses in traditional skills and crafts.
The King has remarked that ‘one of my great joys is seeing the pleasure that the garden can give’. The 15 acres of land were little more than pasture when Charles acquired the property in 1980.
Since then, the gardens have been created to “delight the eye and sit in harmony with nature.”
In line with the King’s interest in sustainability, the gardeners do not use insecticides and make their own fertilizer.
