Charles: My quest to save planet began with secret plot

THE Prince of Wales has disclosed how the Queen helped inspire his lifelong mission to save the planet, giving him a small, hidden Buckingham Palace plot to grow vegetables in as a little boy.

The Prince said he and his sister, the Princess Royal, had been tasked with cultivating their own plants in the Buckingham Palace garden, leaving him “particularly keen”.

Saying he had also been “absolutely riveted” by his grandmother’s garden at Royal Lodge in Windsor, the Prince told BBC Gardeners’ World viewers that his formative years had inspired him to fight the “multiple threats” now facing the British countryside.

The Prince said he was so concerned about the rising number of pests and diseases affecting the country’s “magical” landscape that his “biggest fear is [that] we end up with a wasteland”.

The Prince was interviewed by Adam Frost at Highgrove, his Gloucestershire residence. In an interview broadcast last night, he said he was particularly concerned about pests being brought into the country by gardeners returning from their holidays, packing plants in their suitcases.

Asked how he came to love the landscape, he said: “I suspect it was probably partly to do with my grandmother’s wonderful garden at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, where I spent a lot of my childhood. I remember being absolutely riveted as a child wandering about looking at all the plants.

“It was a wonderful woodland garden with masses of azaleas and rhododendrons. The smell and everything had a profound effect on me.”

The Prince recalled the “totally devastating” effects of Dutch elm disease years ago. “Now of course we’re faced by a multitude of threats of every kind of disease,” he said.

“The biggest fear is we end up with a wasteland here.

“Having seen more and more of these pests, particularly from the Far East, coming here. There’s all these caterpillars and strange things, all with extraordinary names...one thing after another.

“People love the ancient oaks in his country. There are magical remnants of some of these forests. We are a nation of gardeners as well. But somehow people don’t quite realise yet.”