The extra weekend “bank holidays” in Britain announced for the royal wedding on 29 April is expected to set up the best fortnight ever for garden centres there – if they can ensure stock deliveries, industry sources predict, gleefully predicts Horticulture Week. Between 22 April Good Friday and the British May Day holiday, this year on 2 May, garden centres should be extraordinary busy.
So will Her Majesty the Queen. The wedding of Prince William and Katy Middleton on Friday, 29th April will centre of historic Westminister Abbey dating from 13th century. Not quite so ancient, but still venerable is Buckingham Place, originally Buckingham House, built in 1703 by the Duke of Buckingham. “Buck House” as it is fondly known occupies 42 acres in the City of Westminister – 40 of those acres gardens.
These verdant grounds contain many an exotic landscape specimen. Along with plane trees, silver maples, Indian chestnut, swamp cypress and a surviving mulberry tree from the reign of James I of England, left over from an attempt by that not-so-merry monarch to raise silkworms.
A lake created in 1828 once sheltered a flock of flamingoes until foxes ate them in 1980s, while the garden also contains a summerhouse, tennis court and helicopter-landing pad. Recently a 10 x 40-metre vegetable and fruit garden has been installed near the Gardeners’ Yard, fertilized with liquid seaweed and garlic is used to repel aphids. Thanks in no small part to Prince Charles influence, organic practice are favoured. Previous vegetable gardens had existed during both the First and Second World Wars. All are interwoven by 2½ miles of gravel paths, kept free of unwanted growth by a weed-burning machine that operates on liquid petroleum gas.
In May 2007, the queen spotted some palm trees at the Chelsea Flower Show to add to the garden, sourced from Spain at reportedly less than £800. For Her Majesty is as canny as any gardener when it comes to parting with lucre.
Even the eight full-time gardeners and two or three part-timers hardly suffer from excessive remuneration. A fully qualified gardener can expect to commence at £14,975 (about Cdn$25,000) and for 39 hours a week will be expected to maintain the lawns, look after the shrubs, tend the rose borders, and recycle the royal garden rubbish.
According to Mark Lane, garden manager at Buckingham Palace, 99% of waste is recycled on site – grass cuttings, twigs, branches and ‘risings’ (soiled straw from the Royal Mews stables); after being shredded and broken down it is used as mulch.
Large pieces of wood are stacked in the Palace grounds; these piles provide habitats for a variety of flora and fauna, including beetles, spiders and fungi. Tree stumps are not removed but left to rot away naturally, providing an environment for insects to lay their eggs and hatch their larvae. Dead trees are also left alone, and one tree at the bottom of the Rose Garden is currently providing a habitat for a family of woodpeckers. About 320 different types of wildflowers grow in various meadows throughout the grounds. Native cotoneasters and rowans have also been added.
Will there be extensive plantings of Sweet Williams, Dianthus barbatus? Perhaps a few Hosta ‘Katie Q’ tucked away along with Peonies such as ‘Blushing Bride’ and ‘Lady Kate’? Alas, Buck House is singularly silent on such matters. And if they ever were as ever horticulturally afflicted as Papa Charles doubtlessly William and Kate will have other things to occupy their time for some weeks to come.
Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.
