Harry gives royals garden tour
It was a family affair as Prince Harry showed the Queen around his charity Sentebale’s garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.
The prince smiled broadly as he welcomed his grandmother into the B&Q Sentebale garden moments after also giving the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Duke of Edinburgh a guided tour.Charles and Camilla were the first to be shown around by Harry, who greeted them both with kisses on each cheek.
A large crowd of onlookers then laughed along with the royals as Philip joined the group – but had to be pointed out by Harry to Charles who let out a comical “oh” as he realised he was standing right in front of him.
Harry introduced his family to Jinny Blom, who designed the Forget-Me-Not garden, a contemporary interpretation of the South African country of Lesotho. As she met Charles, Ms Blom told him: “You’ve been lumbered with me as your favourite designer,” a reference to her creating a garden with him in 2002.
The renowned landscape gardener was commissioned to create the garden to raise awareness of Sentebale, which helps vulnerable children in Lesotho.
The word Sentebale means forget-me-not and also represents the loss of Harry’s mother Diana, Princess of Wales, and the late mother of Prince Seeiso of Lesotho.
As he showed his father and stepmother the garden, Harry joked: “If there’s anything you like we can probably do a deal. You can’t have it but we can probably do a deal.”
A pattern based on the idea of hearts and crowns, cut into a floating stone in the middle of the garden, symbolises the prince and his loss, as well as the children in Lesotho who have lost their own parents.
Despite the poignant meaning behind the garden, the mood remained light-hearted as Harry joked that the large stone circle they stood on in the middle could spin around and had flashing lights.
Speaking after the royal visit, Ms Blom said of the Queen: “She liked it. The Prince of Wales would like all the plants in the middle to go to the stumpery at Highgrove as he thinks they’re great, and the Queen thinks he needs them.”
The Press Association
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