Highgrove House

today's rather special I've been given an exclusive invitation to visit a country house deep in the heart of the Cotswolds and to meet the man who has spent the last 30 years creating one of England's most important and temporary gardens this is an estate of incomparable beauty and purity of purpose a beacon for all things organic [Music] it's also the passion project of arguably the best royal gardener in history this is Highgrove house home to the Prince of Wales his sanctuary and the outlet for all his gardening aspirations [Music] if you want to look into the heart of the future King of England then you need look no further than his own private girl it's a rare royal invitation never before the Prince given up so much of his time to tell the story of Highgrove I love it's to me it's like a Isis almost like an exhibition I want to know why these Gardens became an organic rallying cry and find out what it's been like to deal with decades of criticism the wildered Frankie bird as if you were doing something positively evil above all what does this sanctuary and private home mean to the man who will be king everything I've done here you raised and was like your children really every tree everything has a meaning and belonging really [Music] [Applause] tonight the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will host the first performance of the Highgrove suite a piece of music commissioned by His Royal Highness to celebrate 30 years of royal gardening in the meantime I've been given unprecedented access to Prince Charles the Highgrove team and these 15 acres of intricately varied grounds with their wildflower meadows oak temples and walled gardens we start our tour with a grand Vista that's become synonymous with Highgrove the time walk of all the views here so this I guess is the one which is the most iconic the one which people - oh that's Highgrove I know that time walk what did it look like when you came here why she was extraordinary think about it was just a brown path that came came across here and that there no grass and the brown path had went down there the brown brother went around there and there was nothing yet thing that might surprise a lot of people is how comfortable it feels it's not over manicured oh really - what I like it as you know I like working with nature yeah because I I actually planned everything in this myself I did the whole thing and I chose all the plans I put everything wrong place basically it all that's short see this is the back the front the other thing is cowardly big on his axes vistors right out the front door right down to that glass which I just felt what I came here for her own things I did begin to realize was it so flat that it needed pistols in all directions you know with eye-catchers was really from going to other people's gardens we were looking in books and Thunder good idea you know you always go so the interesting to think that everything we see here is less than 30 years old yes the horn beams on stilts yes not the use the use because they were the only things but not in these strain no they were puddings just just you know puddings of golden ooh and everybody all the experts said take them out Roy strong to take the man very very sick and then I didn't why I thought I thought about it I thought well no but I do I have a passion for taper I hate to turn I mean I haven't I mean I great fun here because I prune an awful lot but I have my secretaries and - so there is terrific well let me know because I planted so many trees out everywhere and so wherever I go and walk that I'm always sort of awful thing about they don't stand still it's not like furnishing a room and it stays in your dust it occasioning Highgrove is the family home of the prince the Duchess of Cornwall and Princes William and Harry this georgian building of neoclassical design was built around 300 years ago but the house was virtually destroyed by fire at the end of the 19th century and had to be rebuilt passing into the ownership of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's son Morris before the Prince bought the property in 1980 with a view to creating a future family home in the countryside you could have chosen any house and land anywhere so why this one a trouble is you know it could have gone on for years looking you're in - well I'm not sure about that we see there's another place I remember it was like that trying to find a place for picnic in the car oh that looks no no no we've gone a little bit driven where you've got the arrow straight so I came to look at this place and I did I've rather fell in love with the trees fair enough in the you know here in the fields I love the light coming in these windows but Highgrove 30 years ago was a rather modest property similar to many country houses found in countless English villages fine views across the tech Bree left the house exposed to the open countryside the Prince turned to one of the country's most respected garden designers of her generation the then Marchioness of salisbury this doyenne of the organic movement and custodian of the historic gardens at Hatfield house was initially underwhelmed by high growth but of course it looked rather bleak and it was well they did have trees it had nothing no rail garden surrounding it it was a very simple classical house not particularly interesting one object early but quite quite attractive and simple to which he's added a lot which is improved it normally where did you start which bit first but it was really the thundergun because there was no shelter at all and there was no seclusion so we were in those days being permanently pursued by the press who used to tear up down the bottom there with long lenses or down that end or even here it says nowhere to sit and so it seemed to me the most important thing was to give him this privacy by planting hedges high hedges and possibly a gateway in particular today the hedges may have fenced out the paparazzi but there's an irony here now more people get to see Highgrove than ever before last year His Royal Highness shared the grounds with 34,000 visitors [Music] when I first started on the garden tours people were collapsing over the face there were no seats so I thought we must put the lid on this was a present from the horrific Cathedral stainless Oh lovely well ladies of the wiv lips field welcome very much to high go it's very nice to see you here today I'm sure you've been told to turn off your telephones and no photographs and I'm going to add please put your sectors away now organized tours raise revenue for the princes charities and the paying public gains access to eight different garden areas within the grounds they see all of the garden there's not a bit that is kept private they see it all they walk very close to the house and most people are really impressed that they actually get really close to the front door and really close to the the windows in the in the sundog on so they have a very sort of intimate relationship with the house and the garden in the time that they're here it seems very important you to share it well I think Souter be so point for me I love it to me it's like a vice it's almost like an exhibition of my paintings in the survey I look at it and it's so much more fun to be kids - my pleasure leaves I keep thinking I got and I think if I were to be like for other people as well you know well I have them only really outside the window on the floor it could be a mishmash but it seems to work somehow you see we come from sorry where they're all these stately homes with formal gardens with regimented trees and flowers and here it's all natural natural it's well real life instead of artificial it's very artistic he's good see all his the princess artistic feeling about the gardens happy yeah so was the interesting gardening always there or was there a kind of moment where you suddenly thought I really like this I think it was always there really well that I never I never did it much except as a child we relied a little plot backing impellers sort of back of the border grain vegetables and things my sister and I but it's not until you have somewhere obviously of your own it's then then it becomes more possible I think then I really was interested because I wanted to make it more interesting and I think the thing about this place was it as I said as I've said often it was a blank canvas are you good at seeing potential do you have vision can you see a pie oh yes I suppose but as I say it was a blank canvas so then I had to start from scratch and so the prince and lady Salisbury's first creation a south-facing sundial garden [Music] wrought-iron gates came from a reclamation yard in the windows have formally cut you hedges busts of His Royal Highness donated by sculptors and their patrons originally designed as a secluded and scented rose garden these formal beds have evolved into an intricately controlled season to season floral display in the spring hundreds of scarlet and purple tulips making way over the summer for wisteria lupins and sweet peas the sundial was a gift from the lake Duke of Beaufort and the garden is high groves jewel in the crown Head Gardener Deb's good enough and a deputy John rigidly and sure that all is picture-perfect for Prince Charles on a daily basis but that rain was fantastic on Sunday I heard that His Royal Highness was out and got thoroughly soaked and came back thoroughly happy because there's enough rain it was good half an inch absolute this is a garden of floral pageantry with vivid colour composition buzzing bees and a head a mixture of sense this seems to me to be a garden which sort of satisfies all the senses really it really does visual I mean there's the aspect of all the different color and we've all of course more actually this His Royal Highness is very much an artist and has an eye for that sort of detail then there's the sound birdsong and then there's the scent we've just passed sweet peas there's wonderful Philadelphus mock orange in that corner which is saturating the air perfectly situated next to the house when the windows are open and look at that cut Rose the high grove for us oh gosh and set there as well and this wonderful confection of purple and crimson and it's disease resistant which is also a good thing when you're looking at organics this look for resilient plants something I don't work for him he seems to me the whole ethos is gonna be a garden that feeds the soul as will discover Highgrove is a reflection of Prince Charles's spiritual and aesthetic aspirations where gardening merges with art and music the Prince of Wales has asked for the gardens to be captured in a sweep of music it'll feature his very own harpist Claire Jones from the composer who has the task of taking the gardens and translating them into harmony is Patrick Hawes yes I hope I hope that this will be music which will speak to the Prince of Wales because it's his garden I mean there's gonna be a lot of people there at the premier who can enjoy the piece of music as a piece of music and there's going to be a garden tour just before the concert so they can identify the music with the garden it's such a wonderful exciting prospect that you can put something like a piece of music to this original idea that the Prince of Wales has had it's such a great fantastic opportunity to really create something that's very personal for him this half-hour suite of music reflects high groves grand design to garden in harmony with nature but the embracing of organic principles has been a long and lonely road for many years the Prince of Wales seemed like a voice in the wilderness as he warned of the perils of flying in the face of nature interesting then that those early concerns have since become matters of worldwide importance when did the organic bit seep in or was that there right from the start were you established in in organic principles that were in espousing them I think I've said understood that I even in the 1960s when I was a teenager I hated what was going on and destroying and pulling up and tearing down and destroying all the while please listen to me gag too far and so many of these things you had taken hundreds of yes and what she would destroy in one day and it takes forever to recreate lost habitat but so I think I and I also felt increasingly that you know the the chemical approach and the Agra industrial approach was not something that could ever last it was to me not something was durable or sustainable in the long run so it seemed to me the health of the soil was suffering in everything else we had to I felt adopt a system which which understood the needs to have a healthy soil and as I've said before we have to rediscover the absolute central importance critical now urgent abode as a working out in nature we spent too long ignoring and denigrating her and walking all over look at the result we get she comes back and hits us in the teeth big time so with the raison d'être stablished it was time to get creative Highgrove has a look a style a managed wildness crowned by eclectic eye catchers sculpture temples and ornate creations these surprising contemporary takes on classical form are not necessarily what you'd expect and out of the many leading designers who've contributed to Highgrove one couple have made their mark more than any others [Music] Julian and Isabel Bannerman view their garden at Hannam Court as a giant laboratory for their award-winning ideas they use built structures water woodland and the wider landscape to create a deeply romantic scented experience I mean we with that sort of very beginning hi Grover it was sort of great fun it was the beginning of the sort of organic time even they had great thoughts bus and it was a sort of heroic moment for him to be organic there now everybody accepts it but this is had a very last thing and he kept artists and artists and artists and I mean even I was sort of slightly not cynical that's a bad way I hate sense ISM but so doubtful of how you could garden is quite complicated to garden right time walks without sort of resisting midnight to putting a bit of spray on the couch grass creeping through but I mean he really has achieved it and all the things that sounded rather boring he ended up by being heroic about it they sort of became excited didn't it you clearly enjoy working with the Bannerman's there's a lot of their work about and the stumper a and the those temples with the the the driftwood sub tympani at the top oh they are wonderful development quite extraordinary just the most original brilliant ideas only I mean just that founded in the middle of this stumper you know with the the bits of stone I had and then the gunner on the top that was the I think sheared touch of genius did you ever worry when things are not secure nothing is this going to work but Julian is wonderful because he's always who would be such fun to do this you know Julian yes this is another idea you have to pit him down but he's they're both terrific and and their own garden is just magical I mean he you know he was out of job I mean he'd be probably running a garden design company too so he's got his ideas definitely millions noises he's a very good head of a firm I suppose that's where everybody hugs calls him the boss in the garden instead of my word friendship a but he's very good at gathering really good people around him and getting the best out of them and working with them His Royal Highness and the Bannerman's have created what many regard is the signature garden at Highgrove the stumper ii is a striking prehistoric land of upturned tree stumps Gunnar a prickly rhubarb hellebores fountains and temples of seclusion gigantic sweet chestnut roots carefully jumbled to create convenient luscious pockets for ferns [Music] and all a stage for a national collection of largely hostas a particular passion of the prints thriving in shady Glade the Stumpf ray is like a lost world revealing itself to twist and turn concept of garden rooms is quite well established but the lovely thing about high growth is that you move from one garden room to another quite imperceptibly and suddenly here you are having comes through the stump rearch in front of a temple made out of green oak and the tympanum up the full of driftwood type branches and in the back a prince of wales feathers saying greetings from Sierra Leone I suppose this is quite a useful place in which to display gifts from all corners of the world the prince has a team of 12 gardeners and they each have responsibilities for a specific garden area Andrew Toulmin has looked after this temporary for the last eight years this stuff is kind of a laconic garden really it's just an reinvention of a Victorian idea but the sort of stunning reuse of what is a redundant material of tree stumps to make it fantastic wildlife reserve really I think this garden is really kind of his stump on on the garden world really I mean this is truly unique I mean there isn't anything like this in the rest of the garden world and I think a lot of people that come to hike I come to see the stump rake and I think to me it just represents that kind of the person that he is his personality you know this garden is now will be something like 12 years old and that's given chance for various wildlife to make its home and this garden there's no full of things like hedgehogs toads newts slowly and snakes all the things which for us at brilliant because they eat all of our slokas instead of eating our hostas but they provide that kind of natural balance and which is what we're really after and it's noticeable in here I think having worked in places where they use pesticides the big difference in this garden is the sheer amount of wildlife and the sheer amount of bird song is just absolutely phenomenal I've never worked in a place in that birdsong you know very keen on well obviously keen on the wildlife is a wildflower I don't wanna but also these wonderful bird feeders all the way along the last branch of the old cedar rather what you do is open it said rather fun to have something dangling off yeah and then there's inter quite like them in a funny way but there's more tuned to these gardens than just the birdsong tonight the Phil ammonia Orchestra will perform the Highgrove suite for the very first time Patrick has only a few hours to conduct 40 musicians and the Royal harpist into perfect harmony the orchard room was built specifically to host visitors organisations and the princes charitable events and concerts we're standing outside this is drifting to the hope George lovely because the great thing in here the acoustics are not bad or actually good for the size of the string waters to have this kind of keeps the sweet is inspired by precise areas within the gardens such as the stumper II and the wildflower meadow you're following a great tradition the likes of form Williams Lark ascending you know countryside Delius walked the Paradise Garden we look Beethoven's passing the countryside moves people and it seems to me it can only make you write optimistic music well absolutely because what is the that's unoptimized about it it's a constant promise and a constant harvesting of something beautiful what of the Prince of Wales in a way and his holes of gardening ethos do you think comes through or what do you want to come through in your music well I can answer that in one word and that's harmony because I know that's an important word for the Prince of Wales not only in terms of gardening but in all the arts and you can see here the way the meadow works in harmony with nature and so that's what I want my music to do I want it to come together and really add to and enhance what this wonderful place tries to say nothing encapsulates gardening in harmony with nature wildness more than the wildflower meadow a wide variety of species that all take their turn from spring to summer natives such as cows lips buttercups and orchids are augmented with exotic alliums tulips and Commerce's peaking in May with different tones of purple and blue you'd think that by its nature a wildflower meadow could be left to do its own thing but nothing could be further from the truth now people walking through he would say what a wonderful natural wildflower meadow they would wouldn't they I would but it's not like that it wasn't like this one His Royal Highness bought the property 30 years ago so what was it like it was a meadow but it was pretty devoid of any sort of wildflower so it had chemicals used on it so it was really not very species rich and this is something that His Royal Highness wanted to create too something that he reminisced of of what he saw in the 1950s 60s and had been lost in this country and he wanted to recreate it when you look at it now it is the most vibrant carpet of so many different species we've got little cell field down there we've got masses of buttercups Marguerite's moon days all kids over there coming up my little purple candelabra the secret then of getting a meadow like this is what it's absolutely the opposite of what we need to do in the garden there you want to enrich the soil here you want to actually impoverish impoverish it and that's why the yellow rattle which you can see there is the key element in it in any sort of meadow that's too rich yes because this is a wildflower which feeds off the roots of grass it weakens the grass that it grows along it's a semi parasite that's really it's in the it's in the same family as our a Snapdragon yeah which is and it's such a pretty little one and called yellow rattle because when the seeds are right they rattle ability and it's just an annual as well that's the other thing that it remembers so that it's important that you don't cut it too soon before the yellow rat will actually set seeds and drop so this is the key isn't it really then apart from making sure your soil is poor and and introducing a good wildflower seed mix is the right time to cut it so when do you cut this you can actually manage a wildflower for the species you want to encourage so this one we cut mid-july to early August I do think this is wonderful just a rough moment after going through wildflower it's as bonny as any guns one of the great joys about the meadow is going around now each year counting the the orchids the world on his and that is a huge excitement cuz it was completely dead this this field below first kill do you find now sometimes you come out to anything actually I like this bit best because it's gonna be a you've helped nature to do it certainly wasn't like this when you cane but there's such a high purity pure glory about a meadow and for asthma but you have to have real patience again because it's just the constant management and years and years later after I'm dead hopefully it'll get better and better if we talk about likes and dislikes and gardening you obviously love totally yep cuz every girl has them I can't stand Gladio mind I get it in the next no I'm not mad about you know very hot colors as you can see I rather love tips things and the combination of different greens well what you also get is this wonderful shadow when the Sun comes out of it suddenly it all moves and it's not like an enormous Sun Dance are you patient no I'm not now I'm getting more and more impatient as you get older what do you know you've not got that well that's the point and whereas you know when I first started you put the you hedges and it was you know they were just this side nice um when are they ever gonna grow but you'll be shoveled manure on which helps a load but now if I'm cloud you say I don't need to dress you mother why don't take now I think I think good good old-fashioned well Russian Union is the secret of everything [Music] conventional gardening focuses on the plants whereas organic gardening is all about nurturing the soil Deb's was keen to introduce me to the unsung hero of Highgrove so this is the powerhouse of the garden then tabs the compost heap it's actually the most important aspect in an organic garden because what you need to do is feed the soil what goes in must come up confuse a lot of people are composting nobody here is really quite what to put in so what goes into your heap well as you can see the grass clippings we've got the shavings from the stables with the manure which is great we have anything from sort of the herbaceous material bulb seed as you cut off that's right the only thing we don't put in as any other pernicious weeds yeah bindweed ground elder granddaughter goes to the chickens that comes back in a different form they love that this now here is superb how old is this it's wonderfully brown crumbly all right you've picked up the good bit Allan that's actually you can see there's grass here as well about six weeks since since that stage it's the I mean that the heat generated by a compost heap is astonishing and that's the bacteria actually rotting it down that's what makes the really good compost this is six weeks then what's this lovely brown crumbly so that's great and that's still we're talking about you know twelve weeks you see from that amazing 12 weeks is astonishing I mean I've always found a secret home is mixing everything together keeping it relatively firm so it doesn't dry out and relatively damp but never less not soggy that's right and that's why turning it gets air into it and air is a really important aspect of it so that all the bacteria that can actually work properly so this nose isn't ready when you want it to no no no no no I mean we've thought it composted down but it still needs to sort of age like a good wine it needs to sort of mellow out a bit because it's too hot to put on the garden we can get it to this point in about 12 weeks does it be grateful it does need to mature cuz it's actually just too hot still too hot on the garden yeah so you net it mature - literally you can see we've got the next one which is sitting there and that is that time I don't believe this there are stages of complex yeah just cool so start to finish how long 12 weeks to get to where it's it's really well sort of a process but then to be honest I'd rather leave it for four months to six months before we actually put it on the garden so it's the panacea for all ills but how much of it do you produce anemia a heck of a lot and not enough it's a troubling the garden the two things that never big enough 1e greenhouse to you composting [Music] it's this level of behind-the-scenes industry at Highgrove that allows the creation of such elaborate gardens everywhere you go there's a richness of detail whether it's the path you're walking on here with these stones on end or the wonderfully weathered stumps with ferns billowing from them carvings on the back of gazebos and summer houses like this one you get the point what do you think boom maybe it's just for show but then you reminded that this is a family garden there's a tree house up there look inside it you'll see a child's tea set well to children's tea set I don't think they use it anymore but Princes William and Harry have a great time in there [Music] when you go around the garden it still does feel like a family garden it's lived in from the tree house to it larvas to sit in so clearly it's a garden which is very used by the family well he having a well I'm glad you think so anyway because I'm I'm always interested what people think it's gonna be like before they come they all think he's gonna be fried facade of manicured and formal and I don't know why they think that everything and and so when they come they're amazed oh she's a weed of does necklaces why is that grown over the paths do you think it gives them confidence themselves think your lines is massive it's not like I don't know so I like painting and I see it raw like painting a watercolor my gardening yeah you want to lay on the color don't be they'd be sort of careful about it in some ways I used to frightfully carefully when I started now great thing is to slap it on if you can and as I roll see like painting a picture do your son's to the princess share your passion for garden no not yet I don't think but it weather yeah you never know one day perhaps when they have somewhere of their own then that seems to be the key this debate over the ship and custodians yeah so that mean they're not no they're not people who rush off from like potty up things or the riddles or planting at the moment but you never know but I didn't do that very much over the last three decades the family has enjoyed the bounty of a garden which isn't just about pretty flowers an acre a fruit and vege is grown in the walled garden for the house and its guests yet every detail has been aesthetically thought through just because a garden is utilitarian it doesn't mean it can't be beautiful all the fruit trees here a train these are enormous great spheres atop single stalks and then you come to a tunnel of apples that you can walk under the beds in front where the herbs grow our decorative a hedge here of rosemary angelica and lovage into woven with golden marjoram it's a William Morris of a garden have nothing in it that you do not believe to be beautiful or know to be useful now people always say it's all right having an organic garden in the flower garden but the place where you're really tested as an organic gardener is in the kitchen garden because it's here that you know pests are most troublesome if you like pests and diseases what are the secrets then do you think they've of having a good organic kitchen garden well you feed the soil so that you have the plants are as healthy as they can be so that they can resist disease that's one element and you can see the muck that we've got in here well rotted farmyard manure and the great thing about of course when you get all that muck in there is it helps hold on to moisture because they need happen so even there without being checked that's right how do you make sure though that you get wildlife into a walled garden while it's encouraging habitat for them so we've got fruit trees which the birds can actually feel at home in there they're not a wonderful large beautiful and it provides protection for the birds but don't forget the insect life as well because there are beneficial insects that we want to encourage and so this is a little hedge which is just super its commander and late June into July it comes up into flower the flower encourage the hover flies the butterflies and then the bees will not come and pollinate your crops as well so it's a whole again the cycles evident isn't it really works what do you do looking at least bugs it with things like potato blight when a certain amount of atmospheric humidity occurs your potatoes are gonna get blind how do you deal with that it's making sure you keep an eye on everything and as soon as you see pliantly cut down the foliage you don't want it to go down and through the tubers and so literally getting the foliage down as soon as you see any form of light is this what you call active management if management the organic produce from the estate is now an internationally recognised brand established against the odds of mainstream thinking it's easy to forget now because organic growing is so popular just how unusual and offbeat it was 2530 years ago well you had to put up with all the unbelievable stuff that you gained backwards and it was irrelevant or they wouldn't work and all this stuff royal support for the organic cause provided acres of copy for the press he was miles but was time and when we first started doing the organic and the landscape I mean I never thought he was partially and I just feel very sorry for him and annoyed but um that he'd get this sort of criticism what is he up to no he would take it seriously and well blow me I'd like to say something a bit stronger than that firm and he's proven totally wrong and it's quite a unit part things have done in those early days because as a sort of member of the royal family look a bit careful not trade on to people's toes you got a lot of flack did you have feeling like giving up I had a lot of flack for a lot of things but it's really funny how it goes around but their course not oh yes baby no I didn't know because I knew what I was doing dispirited now again but it is still it is the baby bewildered frankly bird as if you were doing something positively evil you know potty this and potty that and Dooley listen Lou neither what's our minutes it's nothing Maddog eccentric about it I mean if you've grown that little bow or even probably planted a lily seed and see Negro you layer you have that relationship with our plants and but it's mocked I said something's half potty to do I'm afraid I love the country and I like and I like being touched with things but of course happily talk to the plants it was trees and all these other things listen I think he's absolute ruin I mean I suppose I'm concerned I never forgotten putting in the reed bed sewage treatment system because even though all sorts of people came to have a look they still do and I've said bunny because got a wonderful wonderful piece of paper from the German gentleman who helped put it up as anyone now's a part owner of the sewage garden wonderful and so I am the proud owner of a sewage garden but no I I just knew that that was the direction it's been like that with everything I've done Prince Charles has always insisted that all hi groves water and waste be recycled the runoff from the rules and all the royal bath water goes back into the grounds even the drains flow directly into a garden designed as a sewage processing plant so does all the waste product as it were from house in the estate you come into this place here that's right from the orchard room from the main house from all of the staff facilities as well so what are we looking at here now with an enormous sort of stone sided tank in effect filled with Phragmites Norfolk tree and they act as a natural filter filtering that sort of raw liquid sewage and then what we see trickling out of here is the first stage of purification see it coming across this bit of pavement here into this enormous boggy area here which has got these these coppiced willows that's that's the next filter system and willows how that capacity to do the same thing is to purify water so we literally have belt and braces here where it's going through the Norfolk raid then through the willow and carries answer to being filtered these then presumably grow it's a ferocious rate with all this it's incredible because you can see this sort of knuckles on them we're now in June this is where they've been pruned back to in winter we've got you know 18 inches of grateful and we'll get believe me eight to ten feet gross on these and then literally we cut these in the winter they're used for making structures in the garden or baskets for the shop which is fabulous talk about recycle this is a super way of doing it so it goes entirely through the the witty bed then that's right down through here lovely crop of stinging nettles with the butterfly and you've got butterflies coming in the spring because we've got buttercups in there as well and so that do very very well and then we get out into the pretty bit so you wouldn't really think that a sewage plant could look as beautiful as this sewage garden Allen sorry god oh look it's wonderful isn't it teeming with wild laughing but that's right this newts more hand dragonflies damselflies and lots not turning they wouldn't be there if it weren't pure absolutely so by the time it reaches this pool which is literally only I think about thirty yards from that reed bed at the top it's pretty pure that's right it all depends on how much rain and everything we have but it's really very very quick and after twenty years it's a proven working capacity mm-hmm I'm pretty it is the purified water from this pond has been flowing back into the water table for a couple of decades but John Ridley hi groves deputy head gardener uses an organic technique which has been around for centuries turning an unwelcome visitor into an asset for the whole garden cutting comfrey for to make some concrete tea which is basically some organic plant food that we make and news here at Highgrove it's very persistent as a plant in terms of you know once you've got it you've always got it you try and dig it out you'll always get it coming back it's a very persistent plant but it's very good at soaking up nutrients and minerals and locking them up and that's why it makes such a good plant food it just basically sort of speeds up the decomposition process by sort of bruising the bruising the plant material and sort of open up the cells and allowing the allowing the bugs and the microbes in so that the process is nice and quickly which is sort of what you want really well I'm just going to put some of this bruised comfrey into the into the brewing bin and then basically what we'll do is when that's full up I get a big big breeze block or a large stone just put on top of it in the bottom there's a scrunched up piece of chicken wire chicken netting which basically forms an airspace so the brewed liquid can sink down into that keeps it separate from the solid and it enables us to to draw it off when it's all ready to go Shriya have a little look vintage Chateau Highgrove comfrey tea will get through pretty much everything that we produce in a year through the nursery and watering the pot to my house with two capfuls two one watering can this brew of comfrey is everything a young plant needs to get the best leg up in life now hedges can be quite dull unless you do rather neat things with them this is you it's sculpted along the top with these pillars and then dips and every so often along this green wall there's a play of ye handy receptacles for busts I'm the one at the back [Music] when was the idea to put the busts in the fun I had it started really with what do I do with all the ones I mean I get given by I stick windows I don't know why I just oh brother fun you can't the grounds are a cornucopia of statues sculptures and designs all reflecting the individual taste of their patron one of the loveliest things about a garden that's been created by an individual as distinct from one which is run by a committee or under the umbrella of a large organization is that you feel the personality of the owner it is in a way a window on their soul I think the fun is to try things that aren't normally done you know a bit and that's what I've tried to do here there's things that amuse amuse me which other people may think you're eccentric but divert the fun I think is then hearing people's reactions because the different moods it tells different stories as you get around I think probably then I'm and I'm lucky I can do these things but everything features help you know little buildings and little things that catch the eye here and there make it interesting as you go around and that's the joy and then you know you know little views you come around a corner and something's draws you on at first glance this might seem to be an incredibly badly built wall but then on closer inspection you realize it's rather ingenious this is the wall of gifts and it incorporates all kinds of pieces of sculpture and carving given to a prince very keen on architecture here there's a coat of arms up here the capital from a column a very menacing carved owl straight from Harry Potter and a bit of a column up there I suppose it's much better than having to put one sideboard [Music] what for you are the best moments in the garden when do you feel most at one with each other well what I love is I do sort of the evening patrols the widget pot or a birch and that's when I notice things and weed and prune you know sawed off bits so the physicality is important as well vital vital them know I love all that getting involved and doing it is what I enjoy because I'm sure it makes me become here think I just give Horace don't do anything I do and then the other thing I really love is laying hedges in the winter you see so that also is is this something that keeps you relatively sane I think and it's very good exercise Prince Charles's love of trees is well-documented and within a secluded Glade in the Arboretum lies the Sacred Heart of Highgrove only the prince may enter this small building commissioned to mark the Millennium it's made entirely of natural materials cob earthen walls Bath stone footings and pillars with a Cotswold stone roof for many of us our garden is an escape a sanctuary from the worries and the bustle of everyday life so too is the Prince of Wales's garden but within this largest sanctuary is a smaller one called the sanctuary just think about it the Prince of Wales is never ever alone yes security men yes staff he seldom on his own except in there it has for doorknobs only one of them works I don't know which ones and I'll never find out [Music] the main thing about this garden is about that it's a quiet air is a reflective areas where a place of complication it's kind of a wondrous garden really it's almost a Garden of kind of mystique there's an element of sort of hidden world about it some sort of mystery kind of thing really as a few years ago where I was actually working in that little piece of stump free there and I pulled out the piece of paper and someone had written a tiny note and stuffed it in the stump re for someone to find and it said to whoever finds his piece of paper this garden is beautiful I've still got the piece of paper on my notice board at home and it's that kind of thing that this garden really meant something to that person walking around on the day and they left a note for someone to find so to me that's what really makes it special this place is obviously a great solace when you come back home and gets a feeling when you come in the garden as a kind of letting off steam how important is it terribly this is wonderfully therapeutic the particular that think came back each you know after a week usually and seeing the difference and this week is extraordinary in one week how everything puts on so much grace this time well it was the rains well I get ran telling where it's a blessing happen it doesn't appear by less much of organic gardening involves a leap of faith a trust in nature do you get dispirited when it goes wrong oh yes but I I've if you become philosophical because you realize in it it varies every year so what goes wrong one year doesn't go wrong the next year I mean nature is very good like that do you have a bad year for potatoes it isn't always a bad year the next year do you know although the fortunes of planting will ebb and flow some parts of the garden will always be more permanent than others Stowe the famous 18th century landscape garden in Buckinghamshire there's a huge ornamental structure known as the temple of worthies which houses busts of eminent Britons such as Elizabeth the 1st and William Shakespeare well the prince has his own take on this with the wall of were these supporting busts of some of his greatest friends Deborah Dowager Duchess of Devonshire Richard charters Bishop of London Patrick Holden head of the Soil Association and underneath him Tigger that's where the Prince of Wales is favorite Jack Russell is buried well can't get a better friend than that can you [Music] and so this royal tour of a private family garden with a public face is almost at an end but the premiere of the Highgrove suite is about to begin those invited to this most exclusive of occasions have donated large sums all for a good cause of course most events at Highgrove are to raise money for charity and tonight's performance will help disadvantaged children through the princes foundation for children and the arts music absolutely I mean we have one of the finest orchestras in the world that are disposal so what can go wrong you know Deb's and her staff have exchanged their gardening gear for more formal wear windows into the lives of the Prince of Wales on the Duchess of Cornwall a rare and my journey around Highgrove has been a unique treat whatever your opinion of the gardens there's no doubt that they reflect the passion and commitment of the man who created them welcome to the orchard room the Prince of Wales is a state in Highgrove though it seems rather odd to welcome the Prince and wear of the Duchess to their own house but but I do along with you [Music] [Applause] [Music] do you think you'll always keep high growth you want to see it through to the end too bad well I it'll be quite nice if I could shuffle off this mortal coil but it's still here yes I don't feel sad because you know it's like everything I've done here you know it's almost like you're truthfully every tree everything has a meaning to the belonging really terrible thing really mustn't get too attached I try not to but it is clearly a family I started attached myself psychologically not yet a while [Music] [Applause] well what a special evening and proof if proof were needed that a garden like this can offer solace and inspiration to all kinds of people to those who walk around it and share a glass of champagne in it to those were inspired to compose beautiful music and the birds who because it's run on organic lines seem to love being here that music might have stopped theirs will continue hopefully for a long time [Music]

Channel: George Pollen

Views: 1,372,228

Keywords: Highgrove House

Id: eEwmPdYBNFI

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 03 2018