Royal Gardeners

Balmoral is the Scottish country home of the British Royal family, who take a holiday here every summer. The gardens link the house, built in Scottish Baronial style, with the wild Highland landscape of Deeside. 

The formal garden has changed little. Today, rose beds are edged with annuals while flowering alpines fill the nooks in sheltering walls. We know that Queen Victoria favoured similar planting, pelargoniums, dwarf rhododendrons, roses and juniper in this, the West Garden. 
 

The Scottish landscape reminded Albert of his homeland in Germany and he started new plantations in the  1850s. Along the Broad Walk, he planted exotic conifers newly imported from the Americas, including Wellingtonias, Douglas Firs and a fine Chamaecyparis nootkatensis Lutea.
 

Albert’s sudden death in 1861 was a severe blow to Queen Victoria. In deep mourning, she spent up to four months a year at Balmoral. The Garden Cottage provided a secluded retreat where she often breakfasted, read her papers and wrote her diaries.

In 1923, Queen Mary added the formal gardens to the South of Balmoral Castle. They are reached through gates with the sovereigns’ initials, made by the local blacksmith . These lead to a sunken flower garden around a fountain bubbling from an Aberdeen ship's capstan.

The Kitchen Garden was planned by HRH Prince Philip within the South Gardens added by the Queen’s grandmother, Queen Mary. It provides vegetables, fruits and flowers for the house including a recent innovation,  blueberries in the glasshouse.

The Conservatory in the South Garden at Balmoral was built in 2002 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II. An inscription reads "One is nearer God's heart in a garden, Than anywhere else on Earth", a quotation from English poet Dorothy Gurney.

The gardens at Balmoral are run on strictly organic lines. As a result, the gardens are a haven for wildlife of all sorts. Both the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles are vocal supporters of organic gardening.

Balmoral has always been a special place for the British Royal family. From Queen Victoria in the 1850s through seven generations to the children of Prince William in the 2020s, the gardens are a welcome retreat from duty.

The gardens attract thousands of visitors each year when the family are away. They have Prince Albert, Queen Mary and the Duke of Edinburgh to thank most for the beauty of the flower gardens, organic kitchen garden and riverside walks. Balmoral is a very personal Royal garden.