Kitchen Garden

THE SIMPLE GEOMETRIC DESIGN OF THIS GARDEN HAS A TIMELESS BEAUTY

Highgrove’s Kitchen Garden is a perfect example of a highly productive but beautifully ornamental walled garden, offering something to see throughout the year. From the moment you step through the gate, you find yourself enticed along one of the many paths forming the bones of this vital garden.

The Kitchen Garden adds a vivid three-dimensional element to its design by introducing height; the lower tier of vegetables within the beds is punctuated by trained trees, curving tunnels, and elegant arbours. The crops are carefully laid out, with parallel rows of leeks, cabbages, Brussel sprouts, and greens interwoven amongst tunnels clad with apple trees and serried ranks of other fruit trees.

The crops and flowers grown in the Kitchen Garden serve a dual purpose of providing aesthetic pleasure and serving as a food source for the household when His Majesty King Charles III is present. They are also used in the seasonal menus of the Orchard Room restaurant.

“In summer, the Kitchen Garden’s central borders are at their best, and I glaze in admiration at the clumps of seven-foot-tall purple, blue and white delphiniums holding their heads high at the back of the borders. The excitement of all the new vegetables is at its height – the tiny, rare purple carrots being the best – and then suddenly, there’s a mass of strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries.” His Majesty King Charles III

The apple tunnel is swathed in ripening fruit in September. Organic apples (‘Discovery’) are also ready to be picked for the Orchard Room restaurant.

The moss on the Italian fountain increases steadily over the years as no protective cover is used in winter, adding to its enchanting feel.

There are many ornamental plants and structures within the Kitchen Garden, with the central herbaceous borders full of blues, whites and purples.

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The Arboretum