The King and Queen attended the annual Sandringham Flower Show, which is being held in a special new location this year
Credit: Aaron Chown/WPA Pool/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- King Charles and Queen Camilla attended the opening day of the annual Sandringham Flower Show on July 22
- The King himself helped design the Royal Legacy Garden on display at the event
- While the show is an annual tradition, this year it’s being held at a private royal location for the first time
King Charles and Queen Camilla are opening up one of their royal gardens to one of the U.K.’s beloved annual flower shows.
On Wednesday, July 22, the King, 77, and Queen, 79, attended the opening day of the Sandringham Flower Show, hosted by the Royal Horticulture Society. The annual exhibition of flower arranging and cultivation has been held in Norfolk each year since 1881; however, this is the first year the RHS is hosting the event at the King’s private Sandringham estate.
It was announced earlier this year that the Sandringham estate will host the RHS event every three years, with the next flower show at the royal residence set for 2029. In the interim years, management will return to the Sandringham Estate Cottage Horticultural Society (SECHS) Trust, which has run the show for years.
The King and Queen arrived by horse-drawn carriage from Sandringham House to greet the crowds of onlookers and fellow flower lovers. They spent time touring the RHS Royal Legacy Garden, which the King helped design in collaboration with Catherine MacDonald. The monarch dubbed the final results “fantastic.”
Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty
Camilla presented Her Majesty the Queen’s Special Award for Upcycled Container Gardens to a bee-themed exhibit designed and created by students at the nearby Ingoldisthorpe Church of England Primary School.
“A lot of hard work went into that,” she told the adult representatives of the school who accepted the award, according to GB News.
As for the King, he seemed particularly delighted by an exhibit in which flowers were planted in an upcycled toilet and sink.
Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty
He also shared a laugh with a well-wisher who called out to let him know that he looked good for his 77 years, as they were the same age.
“It gets much harder, doesn’t it?” the King quipped back.
He also asked a group of children if they ate the vegetables they grew in their garden, expressing his personal opinion that spinach is “the best thing in the world.”
The King is a longtime lover of gardening, but the pride of his horticultural expertise is kept at his Highgrove House residence, near the village of Tetbury.
There, King Charles works with head gardener Gráinne Ring and her team of 15, including apprentices, to cultivate the 15 acres of blooms, hedges, trees and more.
“I see my job as a facilitator of the garden, a facilitator of what His Majesty wants,” she tells PEOPLE. “He has been a gardener longer than me! I can choose the bulbs, but he will choose the color schemes. It’s really about working together.”
Daily tours allow the public to view the colorful creations and sometimes even spot the monarch himself out dead-heading the roses or pruning shrubs.
Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty
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Meanwhile, Sandringham is where the royal family typically gathers for the Christmas holidays. King Charles has kept alive the tradition maintained by his late mother, Queen Elizabeth, of gathering the royal family in the English countryside for an extended break around Christmas.
Entertainment includes shooting parties, exchanging presents and the annual family walk to Christmas morning service at the Sandringham Church on the estate, which is about 100 miles north of London.
Queen Elizabeth’s longstanding aide and dresser Angela Kelly reflected on the holiday traditions in her 2019 book, The Other Side of the Coin, writing, “The house is buzzing, and I love to hear the children running around, laughing and playing. It looks magical, too, with the tree and all the Christmas decorations.”
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