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Hidden treasures of the king’s private piece of heaven.

Like all royal incumbents, King Charles III puts a premium on privacy. Beyond the regal pageantries and elaborate public events, there’s one place that His Majesty can likely be found: on his hands and knees in the tranquil Highgrove House gardens in Gloucestershire, U.K.—pruning his topiaries or planting some new blooms.

“The garden at Highgrove really does spring from my heart and, strange as it may seem to some, creating it has been rather like a form of worship,” the royal said in 1993.

Since purchasing the rather dilapidated property surrounding his historic 18th-century country house in 1980, Charles has transformed the wilted 900 acres of lawn into a veritable paradise that sees 40,000 visitors a year. But beyond the guide-escorted itinerary, the 2015 book Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated, along with past interviews with HRH himself, reveals that there are unexpected delights that offer insight into the hidden life of King Charles.

Nothing is more magical to a young child than a secret treehouse. Holyrood House (a riff on the name of the royal residence in Edinburgh), originally built in 1988 for Princes William and Harry, has recently been refurbished by Charles for the newest generation of little royal youngsters. The rustic playhouse with a thatched roof and an oak post-and-rail fence is nestled in a woodland area known as Stumpery. Surrounded by ferns and toadstools and even a topiary snail, the patter of little feet will once again be heard prancing upon the stone steps leading up to the playhouse entrance.

Despite King Charles’s love of tradition, not all gardens are formal and perfectly manicured. “The way I see it, it’s more like painting a watercolor,” King Charles says in an interview. “I used to be careful about it in the beginning, but now I like to slap it on.” For the king, this means allowing some weeds to grow and a few misplaced flowers to hover over the walkway. Perhaps Highgrove’s crowning encapsulation of letting wildlife do its thing is its (actually humming) wildflower meadow called Meadow Gatefold, which is home to a plethora of insects and birds and 120 different plant species.

First planted 30 years ago, the fragrant wildflower meadow contains a variety of endangered native plants. In fact, seeds of 27 wild plant species from the meadow have been noted as being so important that they’ve been deposited for long-term storage at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway—known as the “doomsday vault.” “I am delighted that seed from the wildflower meadows at Highgrove are to be safely stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault,” Charles told Crop Trust, the organization that has managed the seed vault since 2008. “Ever since I first arrived at Highgrove 40 years ago this year, I have battled to preserve and protect the crucially important diversity of flora and fauna that ultimately sustain our survival on this planet.”

Highgrove visitors may remember seeing this quirky little retreat of stone & plaster, nestled within the Arboretum. Blessed by the Bishop of London, this structure is known as The Sanctuary & is HRH's private place for quiet contemplation. What do you imagine could be inside? 🌿 pic.twitter.com/evXDJDGtl3

Who says the kids should have all the fun? Charles has his own secret hideaway as well (what, you don’t have one?). This idyllic mock home, called the Sanctuary, is certainly not on the public tour and is kept under strict lock and key, hidden among the trees in the ground’s arboretum. It’s a special building designed by architect Charles Morris and created by Professor Keith Critchlow of the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts and Crafts. The Sanctuary was built in 1999 to mark the Millennium, according to Hello! magazine. It has an enchanting pointed roof, grand pillars, and a round chimney suggesting a cozy fireplace inside. It’s made entirely of natural cob, a mixture of Highgrove clay and barley straw, creating a muted color that blends in with the surrounding Cotswold stone.

In 2000, Charles had the idea of creating a garden patterned after a pair of Turkish rugs he owned. This was the beginning of his Carpet Garden. “After gazing for many years at the patterns and colors of one of the small Turkish carpets in my room at Highgrove, I couldn’t help feeling what fun it would be to use those patterns and colors to create a theme for a garden,” Charles explains in his Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated. “The challenge would be to see if you could almost create the effect of being within the carpet.”

The Iranians were pioneer carpet weavers of the ancient civilizations, since the days of Persia’s founder Cyrus the Great around 2,500 years ago. These early carpets were conceived as mini gardens themselves with intricate flower designs woven into thick material that could withstand the outdoor elements.

Initially designed for the 2001 Chelsea Flower Show (which won a Silver-Gilt medal), King Charles’s Islamic carpet garden was then rebuilt in Highgrove. Upon entering into the enclosed space, visitors encounter a gate that the king brought back from India and had renamed the Shand Gate after the Queen Consort’s beloved brother, Mark Shand, who died suddenly in 2014. At the center is a stunning mosaic fountain, a classic charbagh with a raised fountain in the center. It’s surrounded by steps decorated with Moroccan zellige tiles in aqua and blue. Beyond the fountain is a Middle Eastern–like courtyard complemented by terra-cotta pots filled with pink and red roses that hover over the peach-colored terra-cotta tile paths. To top it off, the king has added personal touches of plants from his travels over the past two decades—in addition to an eye-watering 50,000 new blooms a year. The newest installment is a topiary elephant, a gift from the memorial in honor of her late brother’s Elephant Family charity.

Don’t be fooled. That low-hanging fruit from the espaliered apple trees clinging on to the metal arch in Kitchen Garden is not the result of the mouthwatering sweet apple fragrance that hangs in the air here. The apple-tinged aroma actually comes from lower down, where you’ll see sweet briar rose lining each side. In the spring, this walkway is lined by creamy yellow primroses and hellebores that are a stunning marvel in those post-winter months.

In Cottage Garden, an enchanting woodland wonderland that is well named, you will find a sprawling light green tree (in the back in the above photo). This Indian bean tree, or Catalpa bignonioides “Aurea,” was given to Prince Charles for his 50th birthday by the Rocketman himself. It is a fast-growing tree with heart-shaped leaves that often bears pods in the fall that can grow over a foot long, and in the summer boasts large clusters of white blooms. “Curiously, it does not come from India nor produce real beans,” Charles writes in Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated. “It was in fact first recorded in America, and the botanist who discovered it first saw it growing in the field of a Native American tribe, hence the name.” Goodbye yellow brick road, hello Indian bean tree!

The tallest Delphinium ever recorded was a herculean 10-foot, six-inch-tall one that sprang up in Alberta, Canada, in 2017. However, some 4,200 miles away across the pond in Sundial Garden, we’ve got a stalwart contender: a showstopping nine-foot, 10-inch-tall bloom, one of King Charles’s many beloved delphiniums. Originally designed by Lady Salisbury as a secluded rose garden, the Sundial Garden’s layout remains largely unaltered—though with a few more eccentric botanical choices that are lacking in thorns but nothing else. The sundial that resides in the middle of the garden was a gift from the 10th Duke of Beaufort and his staff on the Badminton Estate. It is inscribed with the words: “A shadow round about my face, the sunny hours of day will trace.” Behind the sundial is a set of reclaimed wrought-iron gates that came from a salvage yard.

The king’s commitment to environmentalism is no secret. But the way he’s invested in sustainably focused operations in his gardens feels like a lesser-known disclosure that we want in on. The gardens are run on solar panels and feature energy-saving bulbs and solar lights. More features that truly put the “green” in his Majesty’s green thumb? A composting system through which all kitchen waste passes, a sewage bed system to filter waste from the garden’s 40,000 visitors, an air source heat pump, and even a ground-source heating system that collects water from low levels in the ground to circulate in the greenhouses’ hot water pipes.

“I found myself growing up at a time when so much that had been carefully and lovingly developed, bred, nurtured, and improved over thousands of years of trial and error was being callously and rashly discarded,” King Charles writes in Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated. “The garden at Highgrove represents one very small attempt to heal the appallingly short-sighted damage done to the soil, the landscape, and to our own souls.” King Charles also created an adjacent Home Farm in 1985 that is entirely organic. In fact, the king is so crazy about organic vegetables and meat from this farm that he won’t eat produce from anywhere else, requiring that his breakfast box—which includes no less than six types of honey—travels with him no matter where he goes.

If you find it difficult to hide your ambivalence toward that unwanted ugly sweater from Great Aunt Bertha, then you’ll understand King Charle’s plight (admittedly, first-world problems) who gets presents from around the world. Big presents. Busts and statues are just the beginning (there are piles of them, according to one recent visitor). He gets plant pots and even arboreal endowments, many of which are fit for the Amazon climate, perhaps, but less adaptable to the English countryside. From 60 tree ferns gifted by the Monarchist Society of Australia (they didn’t survive) to an oak sapling from the First Minister of Wales to a rare Manchurian ash Fraxinus mandshurica, a gift from the Dalai Lama—the poor royal has his work cut out for him. Well, maybe poor is the wrong word.

But of course this wouldn’t be a proper royal garden without a melodic accolade. In 2010, the king commissioned composer Patrick Hawes and former Royal Harpist Claire Jones to join the strings of the Philharmonia for a collection of movements, each inspired by a different area of the gardens at Highgrove. The musical arrangement was premiered in the presence of His Royal Highness and his wife, as well as invited guests. Bows out and pinkies up!

Rachel Silva, the Assistant Digital Editor at ELLE DECOR, covers design, architecture, trends, and anything to do with haute couture. She has previously written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, and Citywire.

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