DIANA’S MAGICAL TULIP GARDEN UN VEILED ( SHAME YOU CAN’T TIPTOE THROUGH IT!)
A BEAUTIFUL ‘living tribute’ to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana has burst into life early thanks to the unseasonably warm spring.
Planted as a serene sea of mostly white flowers and foliage – accented with pops of colour – the Sunken Garden at her former home, Kensington Palace, has been transformed over the winter.
Renamed The White Garden, it now features more than 20,000 bulbs, including the appropriately named Tulipa Diana, as well as thousands of other flowers including Persian lilies and sweetly scented Treasure Primrose wallflowers.
There are also 3,500 Myosotis Snowsylva – white forget-me-knots – that were specially sourced by palace gardeners because they were her favourite blooms. Her son Prince Harry named his Lesotho-based charity Sentebale, which means forget-me-not in the local dialect, after them.
Anyone hoping to stroll among the flowers or examine the pots and tubs around the central pond will be disap- pointed, however. The garden itself is not open to the public – although it can be viewed at close range from a walkway that runs round all four sides.
The garden’s predominantly white look has been inspired by memories of Diana’s life, style and image, particularly her white ‘Elvis’ Catherine Walker dress (pictured above), currently on display inside the palace.
But according to team leader Sean Harkin, who has been instrumental in bringing the idea to life, a little colour was injected in tribute to Diana’s sense of fun and spirit. ‘We think the overall effect is very peaceful but also very joyful,’ he said yesterday.
The design was created last April and planted in October. Staff at Historic Royal Palaces, the charity which runs Kensington Palace, planned to formally unveil it at the end of April but the good weather has brought even the later-flowering blooms out in all their glory.
The Sunken Garden was created in 1909 by historian and garden designer Ernest Law and was made to be visually identical from all sides. As a ‘picture garden’ it has never been open to the public but is viewed from an arched arbour of red-twigged lime known as The Cradle Walk, because of the perambulator-pushing Edwardian nannies who used to throng up and down it.
Mr Harkin said: ‘We still get a lot of nannies walking with children, as well as people meditating or doing yoga – it has a very peaceful, therapeutic feel which we encourage by concentrating the flowers with the richest scents along the edges.’
The garden contains a number of perennials, such as burgundy roses and box balls, as well as four towering palm trees – Trachycarpus Fortunei – which were planted in the 1980s, shortly after Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in August 1997, moved into the palace as a young bride.
Although she wasn’t a keen horticulturalist herself, the princess loved to walk in the palace gardens and would often stop to chat to the staff.
Mr Harkin said: ‘There are several former gardeners who have told me stories about when they were working here in the Sunken Garden.
‘ They remember Princess Diana coming by and how she would stop to admire the changing floral displays in the garden in springtime and summer. She would often have a
‘Peaceful but also very joyful’
chat with the gardeners and comment on all their hard work.’
Despite the many thousands of blooms – not to mention hours of manpower by the gardening team, which has only three full-time members – much of the garden will be dug up and replanted for a second, equally spectacular, summer show in time for Diana’s birthday on July 1 as well as the anniversary of her death.
‘Like this spring display we hope the summer show will capture Diana’s radiance,’ added Mr Harkin. Now the official residence of Princes William and Harry, there is no official word as to whether they have inspected the new garden but an aide said: ‘The princes were consulted on the plans and are delighted that Historic Royal Palaces has created such a beautiful tribute to their mother.’
The White Garden is free for the public to view and will be looking its best from now to September.