《皇家花园的秘密 Secrets of the Royal Gardens 2022, Season 3 》第一季03集

The Royal Gardens. Some of the most beautiful spaces in the world. But many are strictly off limits and their secrets well hidden. The Royal Gardens provides habitat for fantastic species. It houses absolute gems. Now, in this series, we go behind castle gates and beyond palace walls to reveal the surprising history that has unfolded inside these Royal Gardens. Buckingham Palace had its own menagerie. Exotic animals were all the rage. And explore the secrets behind their iconic designs. The maze was inspired by Prince Charles's childhood at Sandringham. We meet the passionate people who look after these horticultural havens. It's great being a gardener at a place like this. It's steeped in history. And discover how the royal family have used them in the past and today. For the Queen, the gardens at Buckingham Palace have been a lifesaver because she is fundamentally a country woman. Queen Elizabeth II may hold the keys to the world's most recognisable palaces and castles. But when the royal family want to kick back and relax, they retreat to their privately owned homes and gardens. Royal homes are where members of the royal family live and feel at home. It's where they feel comfortable. From Dumfries House, a 2,000-acre estate in Scotland, to Highgrove in the west of England, Prince Charles's pride and joy. Most members of the royal family are very keen gardeners. And it's a love, I would say, that has gone through generations. The private homes, I think their gardens reflect the personalities of the individuals who live there. There is one house the Queen holds most dear, like her father and grandfather. When he comes to Sandringham, the king indeed comes home. For here he can indulge his deep interest in all that country life has to offer. Sandringham. This imposing yet homely Jacobean mansion has been a family favourite since the 1860s. Sandringham is located three miles from the stunning Norfolk coastline. The house is set in 60 acres of gardens. Close to the house are ornate formal spaces. Further away are large ponds and woodland. Each garden space offers a distinct style and feel. The North Garden with its cottage garden beds and avenues of lime trees, the ornamental stream and lakes, planted with water-loving varieties and framed by maples and conifers. And beneath the glade's veteran oak trees are rhododendrons, which the Queen introduced from Windsor in the 1960s. Here they flourish in the sandy acid soil. Beyond the garden is parkland and a 20,000 acre estate that encompasses villages, farms, forests and nature reserves. As a child the Queen always said that when she grew up she wanted to live in the country with horses and dogs and you know be a country wife. I think that Sandringham is where she can actually live out that dream that she had and she absolutely loves it. These grounds, a much-loved retreat for the Queen and for four generations of royals, were first laid out by the most unlikely monarch. The Sandringham estate has been owned by the royals since 1861. It was purchased by Queen Victoria for her wayward son Bertie, the future King Edward VII, to try and keep him away from the London party crowd. Sandringham was to be a sobering retreat for Edward, or Bertie as he was known, to grow into the role of King. But his playboy reputation followed him there. Because Bertie just invited trouble to him. Hunting parties, parties of ladies, sort of ladies popping in and out of rooms, this all happened in Sandringham. On the estate Bertie created a shooting party paradise. During hunting season gardeners were banned from disturbing the game. Even the time was bent to Bertie's royal will. In fact Bertie loved hunting so much that he created Sandringham time and it was half an hour ahead of GMT so he had more time to party and more time to hunt. Really significant intervention by saying I not only control this whole area and what you do but also I control the time. By royal decree these grounds remained in their very own time zone from 1901 to 1936. Bertie and his wife Queen Alexandra also turned their attention to Sandringham's royal gardens. Bertie finds Sandringham house and gardens rather shabby so he employs landscape gardener WB Thomas and Mr Thomas has a job on his hands because Bertie wants to move an entire ornamental lake and then dig out two more. London-based garden designer Thomas who was described by Bertie as a not inexpensive gentleman led the heavy work himself. Thomas was worth every penny delivering on Bertie's grand plans. Creating the stunning lakes and expansive lawns that are still enjoyed by the royal family today. Bertie's legacy goes beyond his royal garden. 20 years after taking over Sandringham he decided his tenants should take more pride in their gardens so Bertie created the perfect incentive the Sandringham flower show. Each July the park next door to the royal garden is a riot of colour. Locals all come and take part and they produce wonderful produce and and flowers. It has grown into one of the big flower shows in the country. The one-day event that began in 1881 attracts 20,000 visitors and the guests of honour don't have far to travel. It's not an official engagement but the Queen Mother didn't miss a show for 50 years. Now Prince Charles attends in his grandmother's place. Prince of Wales loves going, Duchess of Cornwall loves it. Prince Charles and Camilla's coach leave Sandringham house at 11am sharp. It's very much an opportunity to mix with the locals on a level where they're not just saying you know do you come here often. Charles being a great gardener you know talks to gardeners. The royal marquees house competitions for local amateurs next to special gardens designed by the region's leading nurseries and horticulturalists. For exhibitors like rose grower Ian Limmer a year's hard work has been building up to today. You have hundreds of exhibitors setting up stands stalls and things like that only for one day. I think that's why it's so special just this one day. The coach you know pulls up and you know the band starts playing and then we're sort of getting ready there we're sort of nervous. We are always the first stand that Prince Charles comes to see. Standing there and you're thinking what shall I say what shall I say but as soon as they come they just put you at ease so so well. Prince Charles will come along and say oh it's a lovely rose. He knows his roses and you know and his plants because he's always you know saying oh I've got that one in my garden. Roses are Britain's most popular flower with over 30,000 varieties. Ian has been going to Sandringham for over 40 years and knows better than most what will win royal approval. I think he seems to have an interest in a lot of the old-fashioned varieties a lot of the shrub roses. We've got one here called Rennes de Violette which he's always seemed to be drawn to. It's a hybrid perpetual that was introduced in 1860. The old garden style Rennes de Violette has a stately and timeless quality with its dusky grey-green foliage and abundant magenta petals. I think he seems to have a preference you know for some of the the purples. In 2014 Ian was granted permission to name a new rose variety after Sandringham. At the flower show that year the Prince and Duchess were invited to pick from three options but they couldn't agree which one was worthy of the name. Prince Charles like this one has a lovely fragrance sweet fragrance nice glossy foliage. Camilla preferred this one has two or three flowers on the end of each stem sometimes in the height of the summer it'll have say you know three or four again very good fragrance and that was a little bit daunting. After secret talks behind closed doors Camilla's choice the deep pink intensely perfumed bush rose Be Mollie was bestowed the name Sandringham. Prince Charles and Camilla they are interested in the plants and to have a rose named Sandringham it's a huge honour for us. The private houses and gardens of the royal family offer a chance to make one's own mark. When Highgrove in Gloucestershire came on the market in 1980 Prince Charles snapped it up for £865,000 and got to work on the nine-bedroom Georgian house and most markedly the 15-acre garden. He spent years designing the gardens there and you know putting in a lot of extra trees and wildflower meadows so it's a beautiful house but the gardens really reflect his vision of a sustainable way of life. Charles took an overgrown kitchen garden and a few mature trees and created something spectacular and famously organic. Highgrove was a blank canvas when Prince Charles actually bought the property and now 40 years on he has completely transformed all the grounds of Highgrove. So you have the main building here but what they've cleverly done at Highgrove is created a little vista. It's a line of trees and topiary that actually gives it structure. You walk through it and it leads you all the way to the pond so it's actually training the visitor's eye of how to divert their attention in a particular direction. The path is planted with fragrant thyme and flanked by golden yew topiary. It's kept quite symmetrical and then as your eye goes further out what Prince Charles has done is created different identified gardens throughout the property so your experiences of that garden change along the way. It's a very eclectic green space and I think it reflects the prince's very eclectic interests and tastes in life. A series of garden rooms dot the landscape maintained to the highest standards by a team of 12 gardeners more than the eight at Buckingham Palace. Each space is unique hidden away in a secluded courtyard the carpet garden designed after a pair of Turkish rugs owned by Prince Charles. It's a traditional Islamic garden design that splits the space into quarters. You have the four gardens which generally is known as The number four is very important in Islamic gardens and it's all to do with the four elements you've got earth, you've got wind, you've got fire and you've got water. So you've got four gardens the axis that cuts through and those are the four rivers of heaven. The garden is planted with hardy favourites like clematis, fuchsia and geraniums giving it a local twist. On the other side of Highgrove House the cottage garden a fusion of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants inspired by the wild flowers of Tibet. The sundial garden has as its centrepiece a wedding gift to Charles and Diana from the Duke of Beaufort. In the summer the dramatic towering spikes of Prince Charles's favourite flower light up this garden. The prince has a passion for delphiniums and I don't know how the gardeners do it but you know his delphiniums are about nine feet tall, mine about there. Delphiniums are in the buttercup family. They need plenty of care staking, feeding and protecting from slugs. Most people would have put slug pellets down to stop the slugs. He had a different way of doing it. He's attracted birds to the garden who eat the slugs. So I mean everything has been thought through. Everything in his garden is glorious. For Prince Charles this garden is not just about the flowers and trees, it's a place full of memories. The Temple of Worthies is a memorial for the Queen Mother depicting her in her favourite gardening hat. And in the meadow among crocuses and snowdrops is a willow statue of Charles's beloved Jack Russell, Tigger. It's not just a showpiece his garden, it's a lived-in garden. The princes grew up there. Harry was quite cheeky, Harry was quite mischievous and there was one occasion where they couldn't find Harry at all, he'd vanished. As concerns grew a full-scale search of the grounds ensued. And eventually somebody found him in a huge pot, it was actually on its side. Harry had hidden himself away in the Mediterranean garden. I think they clearly had very good fun at Highgrove. At the bottom of the garden in a shady woodland glade is a secret hideaway. When the children William and Harry were growing up the prince built them a treehouse, a pretty magnificent treehouse. Built in 1989 for Prince William's seventh birthday, this palatial treehouse is named after Holyrood House in Edinburgh. This playhouse continues a royal garden trend. A young Princess Elizabeth was given this incredible 15-foot high four-room cottage by the people of Wales. We should give three cheers for the little Princess Elizabeth. It was a fully working home with original thatched roof, running water and electric lights. Installed at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, it was a favourite of the young Elizabeth and Margaret and is still in use today. Highgrove's gardens have many other structures. In the cottage garden is a rustic hut co-designed by Prince Charles. In the wood are temples made in 1996 from sustainable green oak and driftwood. These extravagant ornamental designs are inspired by the 18th century trend for follies. To find out more about these structures there's only one place to go. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, home to a number of spectacular and historic follies commissioned by the royal family over hundreds of years. Kew's leading expert on this fashion in garden design is Richard Wilford. A folly is basically a decorative structure. They're very popular in the 18th century and they're normally depicting exotic architecture. So they might replicate a Roman temple or a Greek temple. Another word for them is eye catchers which I think is quite descriptive. You might catch a glimpse of one on a hill or emerging through the trees. It's a romantic idea of an exotic garden. In the 18th century Kew was part of this royal palace and led the craze for exotic and fantastical follies thanks largely to William Chambers, architect to King George III's mother Princess Augusta. William Chambers probably built about 20 follies at Kew in the in the 1700s. The royal family had this land they wanted to entertain people and they wanted to create a landscape that was that was unique. There's probably more follies at Kew at the time than almost any other garden. This was the era of the Grand Tour where the upper classes traveled through Europe and beyond. Chambers' follies showed influences from across the globe. The Moorish Alhambra and the Romanesque ruined arch. And in the middle of Kew the most famous folly of all, the Great Pagoda. The Pagoda was built around the same time in the mid-1700s and at the time one of the tallest buildings in the country I imagine. The 50 meter high Great Pagoda complete with 80 gilded dragons was Chambers' gift to Princess Augusta. The tower was not predicted to last but it was tough enough to survive bombing in the Second World War. The Pagoda still survives today. Ten stories and get a magnificent view from the top over the whole of Kew. The Great Pagoda is one of only a handful of Chambers' follies that are still standing. This is the Temple of Aeolus. This was built originally in about 1763. Aeolus comes from Greek mythology which means master of the wind so it's an open-sided temple. It's much nicer to look at a view from a kind of temple like this than just standing under a tree you know. It brings a bit of fun to the garden. At Highgrove in Prince Charles' garden this same sense of mischief and wonder prevails and the follies here are fitting heirs to the grand royal follies of the 18th century. Following his success with Highgrove, Prince Charles took on an equally ambitious project, Dumfries House in Ayrshire, Scotland. This stunning 18th century house contains original furnishings from furniture maker Thomas Chippendale and other lavish designs. In 2007 it was in danger of being broken up until the house and gardens were purchased by Prince Charles and his charity the Prince's Foundation. Since then they have led a community-focused regeneration. Dumfries House, Prince Charles has actually just had fun with it. He's used the gardens to create a really wonderful environment. I think it's a playground, it's an amazing place. Over the past 14 years Charles has transformed this 2,000 acre estate with a series of ambitious and surprising garden designs. The maze was inspired by the prince's childhood at Sandringham. Although the maze at Sandringham has long since been removed, Charles oversaw the construction of this labyrinth in 2016. Its half a mile path is longer than the historic royal maze at Hampton Court. You've got the pagoda in the middle which actually gives a sense of scale but also a sense of destination. The Japanese style pagoda and obelisks are standout features among the maze's 2,000 six foot high yew trees. There's also the Chinese bridge at Dumfries. When you walk through the estates you suddenly arrive at this phenomenal bridge and it's a bit of theatre. Dumfries is not just about stunning designs. Prince Charles has set about creating a garden with a difference. The grounds have been enhanced and redeveloped so there's a lot of work that's been done on the estate trying to boost employment in the local community. He has built an amazing garden with all sorts of vegetables and planting and that has opened up to the public. In 2014 the Queen joined Charles for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth walled garden. Community volunteers transformed a five acre derelict site into this spectacular space featuring a large rose garden and boxed parterres. A standout 40 meter border is planted with Charles's favourite delphiniums and underplanted with flocks which thrive in the light shade providing months of colour and rich scent. Much like at Charles's other houses all of this is organically managed. Sustainability goes right through the heart of Dumfries house in terms of the planting there in terms of the remodelling of the grounds it's sort of Charles in house and garden form again a bit like Highgrave. And it's even been suggested that Charles though duty bound to stay out of politics is making a statement on Scottish independence via the medium of the vegetable garden. Rows of vegetables are laid out in two crosses making a familiar patriotic shape only seen from the air. One has to remember that it's a Union Jack in Scotland. I mean is that a no-no or is it a yes? That's the prince having a little bit of fun making his point but he hasn't actually said it. Highgrove. When Prince Charles moved here 40 years ago he embarked on a love affair that's consumed him ever since. Organic agriculture and horticulture. Highgrove has been the living embodiment of this gardening philosophy that Charles passionately believes in. Organic farming delivers the highest quality best tasting food produced without artificial chemicals or genetic modification. You know when he first started talking about it he was regarded as absolute crackpot you know he was just ridiculed but he wasn't put off you know the ridicule didn't stop him he believed in what he was doing. Today Charles and his gardeners continue to innovate producing two types of compost and he heats the entire house with biomass boilers and thanks to a unique reed bed system even when nature calls the royal flush is filtered and recycled. Highgrove's very own sewage garden. What happens at Highgrove is all the grey water is actually channeled through from the house and goes through various natural filtering processes. Porous tree bark acts as the first barrier. The waste water then travels through reed beds where the roots feed on any organic matter. The reeds in turn oxygenate the water. It is then channeled into a plantation area so this this is all planted with willows and marsh marigolds. Marsh marigolds are almost like large buttercups really. They work really well in this particular area because they are part of that aquatic palace of plants and hence they help the the filtration process. Marsh marigolds are joined by other water loving plants like yellow flag, water forget-me-nots and water lilies. It is a natural way of breaking things down and actually the plants then using the nutrients from that soil. Once the water emerges from the filtration beds it helps Highgrove's flora and fauna thrive. That water when it comes out into the pond is not necessarily drinkable but wildlife can live in it and that water is actually good enough to fill a watering can and go in watery plants as well. So in effect all of the water is actually being reused. Away from the sewage garden found down a quiet wooded path is Highgrove's most unusual garden. In a woodland glade dead trunks are upturned in the ground, jagged roots jutting skyward. This is Highgrove's stumpery. That stumpery actually has a real magical feel about it. When you go in there it is quite mystical in a way, almost like a fairyland. When the stumpery was introduced in the 1990s not everyone was similarly moved. When Prince Philip apparently saw it for the first time he said when are you going to set fire to this lot? Highgrove's stumpery takes its inspiration from a gardening craze that started over 150 years ago. The fashion for stumperies really came around in the Victorian era because there was such huge interest in ferns. Ferns were everywhere in Victorian Britain, in homes, on custard cream biscuits and in stumperies where the shady moist conditions are ideal. Ferns also contribute to the balanced ecosystem that's so important to Prince Charles. It creates an environment which is really good for frogs, new stanzel flies, dragonflies. You will get wildlife there, great habitat. The Highgrove stumpery has inspired similar gardens all over the UK, even in cities. Paula Magoon looks after an award-winning stumpery in the heart of London. It's a very natural way of gardening. It works really well when you've got the mature trees and then the stumps underneath. The dense trunks in a stumpery take time to break down. And when they do start to rot, new possibilities emerge. Here you can see that the trunk has decomposed and left this crumbly humus-rich compost which is brilliant on the woodland floor for all sorts of wildlife and also for plants too. These are unique, tranquil and atmospheric gardens. What they create is a peaceful woodland environment where you can just relax, surrounded by all of this growth and lushness. There's a quietness to them and that's where the magic comes from. Just as Highgrove in the West is being shaped by Prince Charles, Osborne House, south of the mainland on the Isle of Wight, was defined by another royal visionary. This grand house and its stunning gardens were created by Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, in 1851. The warmer climate and setting reminded Prince Albert of the Bay of Naples and this was the inspiration behind these gardens. The gardens of Osborne House reflect a style that was all the rage in the 19th century, Italianate designs. 18th century gardening had been all about overgrown flower meadows, getting close to nature and in the 19th century they started to move away from this and more towards a more geometric, planted, planned setup. This Italianate garden design uses symmetry and topiary along with water and statues to create focal points. It was a defining moment in British garden design. Prince Albert, the early adopter who always had the latest ideas, he absolutely loved it, appealed to his organising, efficient personality. Albert started planting on the terraces in 1850 before construction was even finished on the house. Prince Albert had planted myrtle and laurel along with rhododendrons and azaleas. The scent of orange blossom and roses fill the air of these gardens. Prince Albert loved the results of the Osborne House garden so much he brought this style back to London. He had this area of Kensington Gardens redesigned. With its water features, urns and an Italian style building, this was just one of many Italianate gardens created in the 19th century. This garden design became popular across Britain and was even used to create a famous London landmark, Trafalgar Square. We see it everywhere from the railings around Trafalgar Square to Osborne House. The Italianate garden was the way forward. The vast Sandringham estate. Beyond the picturesque gardens, what the Queen loves most about Sandringham is something she's had an affinity with all her life. Animals. She has her horses, she has her dogs there, she takes her corgis. It's a place where she can completely relax. One of her great passions in life is riding. When she's at residence at Sandringham, she rides there a lot. And even out of the saddle, the Queen spends time with horses, breeding racehorses at Sandringham's Royal Stud. The Royal Stud is a huge operation, and she takes a very, very close interest in every single element of it, from the birth of the foals there, which she watches on her iPad, through to obviously them racing. She can remember every single detail of every single horse she's ever bred. The Queen's obsession with horse racing can be traced back to the beginning of her reign. Lord Willoughby de Brock accompanied Her Majesty to the paddock to look over the runners, and the royal visitors stayed some time while the twelve runners were walked round. She has attended thousands of races, sometimes as an observer, and other times as owner of the winning horse. One of these horses is found in the Sandringham gardens today. One of the things about Sandringham which goes right to the heart of the importance of racing for the Queen is that magnificent sculpture of Estimate, her gold cup winning horse from Lord Ascot in 2013. Estimate won Ascot's gold cup, making the Queen the first reigning monarch to ever win this race. The Queen decided to permanently honour this achievement at Sandringham, commissioning a statue. When the sculptor went to see her, to see where it would be put on the estate, she was astonished when the Queen led her to the front entrance of Sandringham and said, I want it there. Anyone that goes to Sandringham, the first thing they see is a life and a half size sculpture of one of the most important creatures to her, Estimate. Estimate wasn't the Queen's last winning horse. The Sandringham stud is still producing winners. And actually, at the age of 95, in the 2021 flat season, she had her most successful run ever with more than 30 winners on the flat. The Queen casting an expert eye over the runners, she was in her element. Along with the horses and dogs, the Sandringham estate is the ideal habitat for a huge diversity of animal species. Between Sandringham House and the coast is Dursingham Bog, an area of outstanding beauty and significance as a wildlife habitat. Dursingham Bog has three distinct habitats, mire, heath and woodland. Basically, it's pretty wet and it's pretty boggy and those conditions are really good for certain kinds of rare plants and insects. You can see dragonfly there and at night you can even catch a glimpse of glowworms. But one of its great spectacles happens in the winter and that is the arrival of pink-footed geese. Although they breed in colder climates, they flock to the Sandringham estate every winter. I'm talking about tens of thousands, so this really is a wildlife spectacular that is well worth seeing and hearing because they make such a din, they honk to each other. Sandringham is also proving to be a lifeline for one of Britain's most endangered birds, the Eurasian Curlew. Recently, Prince Charles was involved in a project to help boost the number of Curlews on the Sandringham estate. Around 147 eggs were removed from an airfield where they were at risk. They were then reared and released on the Sandringham estate. With the number of mating pairs in decline, the hope is that they will find sanctuary at Sandringham. It shows that the estate is playing a really vital role in terms of wildlife in the area. That coastline habitat linked in to the heathland is really, really important. For the monarchy, tradition reigns supreme. One tradition the royal family rarely miss is Christmas at Sandringham. Sandringham is the Queen's winter residence. She tends to spend from towards the end of December until early February at Sandringham. On Christmas day, the whole family join Her Majesty the Queen to attend St Mary Magdalene Church on the estate. It's all about Christmas really and family for the Queen. With Sandringham closed to visitors, the Queen and her family have the stark, striking gardens to themselves. People always think that gardens don't exist in winter, but actually they do. Gardens never go to sleep. There's some real pleasure in looking at hedges that are just hit by frost or the morning dew. Hedges provide colour and structure when other plants are bare. And trees come to the fore, framed against the winter sky. When it's foggy and you just see the silhouettes of the trees in the fog, it provides a real magical feeling. Sandringham isn't just full of bare branches. Splashes of colour are found all over the gardens, from the pinks of early flowering rhododendrons to white snowdrops and bright carpets of yellow and gold. One of the key plants at Sandringham is the hyomallis. Hyomallis is the winter buttercup which has beautiful bright yellow flowers. Hyomallis love wooded areas of the garden. In summer, the trees shade their moisture-loving bulbs. In autumn, leaf fall enriches the soil. It comes out very early in winter because all the trees are bare. So where the sun hits the ground, the hyomallis come up, and as soon as the trees are beginning to burst their canopies, hyomallis actually goes dormant. So it has that short space to do its magic. The gardens of the royal houses are deeply personal spaces. From Prince Charles's 40-year passion project at Highgrove. Highgrove was a blank canvas. Prince Charles has completely transformed all the grounds of Highgrove. To the Sandringham estate, where the Queen truly feels at home. Sandringham is where she goes to indulge in country life, and she absolutely loves it. These gardens reflect the personality of the royals who originally shaped them or live in them today. They've moved on from the formal style of Osborne House to the more playful, such as the design of the vegetable garden at Dumfries House. And the follies at Highgrove. The gardens inside the royal homes are no longer about manicured perfection. Today, they are innovative habitats that work in harmony with nature.