The quaint treehouse thatPrince Williamand Prince Harry played in at their country home as kids is ready for their own children to enjoy.
The little cottage in the trees at Highgrove was built for the brothers in 1989, and it has recently been re-thatched (yes, it has a roof of straw a foot-thick). William’s kidsPrince GeorgeandPrincess Charlotteare known to have already tried it out. And, it is set to welcomePrince Louisand littleArchiewhen they’re big enough to make the climb during their summer visits.
And rising high among the trimmed hedges and the organic flower meadows ofPrince Charles’s Highgrove House, in Gloucestershire, is a balsam poplar tree, which the royal planted for his first grandson in 2015. (George catches up with its progress when he comes to stay!)
The children’s attractions in grandpa Charles’s magical garden encapsulate the old and the new themes of the garden. When the prince, 70, acquired Highgrove 39 years ago – it was his first country home with the late Princess Diana whom he married a year later – it had a neglected kitchen garden, an overgrown wood, some pastureland and a few hollow oaks.
Marianne Majerus Garden Images/Highgrove Enterprises
Highgrove.Highgrove Enterprises
Since then, Charles has overseen a transformation, creating a kitchen garden providing food year-round for the house, and walkways of azalea (the prince loves to create highly-scented areas of the 15 acres of garden) and the four-acre wildflower meadow sprinkled.
To underline that, his office has released a series of then-and-now pictures to mark the 25th anniversary of the garden being opened to the public. In that time, he has raised $8.8 million for good causes, via hisPrince of Wales’s Charitable Fund.
GAP Photos//Highgrove Enterprises
Prince Charles at Highgrove.Highgrove Enterprises
GAP Photos//Highgrove - A. Butler/Highgrove Enterprises
Over at Highgrove, which now attracts nearly 40,000 visitors a year when it isopen from April to October— Charles chooses the colors to theme the flower gardens in the shadow of the 18th-century house. These might be the racing colors of his motherQueen Elizabeth. This year, he chose the same multi-hued set in bouquet that he happened to have inside the house.
Prince Charles.Marianne Majerus Garden Images/Highgrove Enterprises
Prince Louis, Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.Tim Rooke/Shutterstock
Press Association via AP
Charles also has a particular liking for spear-like delphiniums (they had one at 9ft 10in last year and hope to crack the 10ft barrier this year!).
Whether it is the yew hedge shaped like a frog, or the busts of some of his friends or the garden modeled on one of his carpets, he wants to “feed the soul, warm the heart and light the eye,” for the visitors, he says in an introductory film.
source: people.com
