Last week I visited HRH the Prince of Wales’ garden at Highgrove for the third time.
Each time I’ve visited – the first time in pouring rain in August 2015, the second time near the end of the wildflower season in June 2016, and now in October 2016, we’ve been led by a different guide and each has chosen a different slant. On this occasion our guide (a gentleman in his eighties) told us that HRH the Prince of Wales takes his guides round the garden and tells them all the stories and points out the things he wants them to mention to the visitors. Inevitably, however, each individual will have his or her own angle onto the garden.
So this time I was able to notice not only those aspects of the garden this particular guide was focusing on, but those which carried stories told on my previous two visits. One of the tales told by today’s guide (tongue-in-cheek) portrayed the Prince as an unexpected visitor to Highgrove whose favourite occupation, having turned up without prior warning, is to hide behind the hedge and listen in on what visitors say about his garden. In fact most of the time the visitors are silent with either admiration, delight, puzzlement, bemusement or even, dare I suggest, indignation, when they realise that they are not in the Land of the Immaculate, and that weeds are not treated like public enemy number one in this garden, 
moss is allowed to multiply to its fullest extent on stone, and different principles apply, other than those we might expect, perhaps from National Trust gardens, or those associated with Capability Brown.
This time I felt able to say which are most definitely my favourite aspects of the gardens at Highgrove. For those who have visited, this list will be meaningful, but for those who haven’t, then I suggest either reading this book on the subject, or just letting your imagination play with the images the list suggests:
I love the stumpery, and the little gnome that is to be found inside one of the stumps there;
the temple garden, with its two statues to ward off evil spirits, and the network of dry sticks and twigs in the temple pediments, that manage to look like intricate wood carvings; 
the goddess of the wood; 
the wall of gifts; the four daughters of Odessa; 
the pond with redundant stonework and limestone topped by gunnera, the topiary frog and snail.
To me, this is a garden that is playful, quirky, eccentric; a fantasy made real by someone who has the means, the time, patience and heart to achieve it. As I wander through the garden, I can’t help expecting trick fountains – such as those which King Ludwig of Bavaria incorporated into his own garden, in the gardens of his dreamlike palace.
Whenever I go to Highgrove and walk around the garden I feel happy: the garden combines a sense of fun with tranquility, surprise and ingenuity. It’s a garden with a sense of humour, which can take a joke against itself, and a garden with a soul.
Have you ever been to Highgrove? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the garden there; please share them in the comments below.
(please note: the photos here are not my own; visitors to the Highgrove estate are not allowed to take photographs)
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