Buckingham Palace Organic Gardens

One of the most famous organic gardens in the world is Buckingham Palace Gardens, located right behind Buckingham Palace. Because its organic, the gardens are home to all kinds of

wildlife including animals, insects and birds.  It is considered one of the most important havens for wildlife in London, and the Queen takes a personal interest in this garden.

I recently watched a one hour special on PBS and was enthralled with the cutting-edge photography, and more importantly with the detailed information on the organics of the 39-acre garden.

While much of the garden has manicured areas, all 39 acres are ‘fertilized’ with composted manure from the Royal Stables.  Typically, I don’t recommend horse manure because it contains a lot of weed seeds that aren’t broken down in a horse’s stomach.  If you use a well composted manure (composted for at least a year), the weed seeds are killed.  Better manures to use are cow and llama.  They have 3 stomachs which kill the weed seeds. The year of composting also ‘cools’ the manure so it doesn’t burn and starts the process for beneficial organisms to grow in large numbers.

So if you are in an area where a kindly neighbor will share their manure, you’ll have a fun day trip collecting it.  If you need to purchase it, its typically available at one of the box stores, or your local farm nursery. Its quite inexpensive and I feel it is one of the most beneficial natural ingredients to add to your soil.

Her Majesty has also created a special island called The Yard, that is in the center of a 3 acre man-made lake.  This area is specifically designed to be the most wild part of Buckingham Palace Gardens.  This garden houses Her Majesty’s bees and she has created it to produce top

quality honey with providing nectar and pollen plants.   Over the past year, scientists have documented over 250,000 species of insects, 350 species of wildflowers and 83 species of birds.

While you may not have an island in the middle of the lake in your yard, you can certainly create a microclimate specifically with wildflowers and nectar plants for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.  In fact I’ve done several blogs that tell you exactly how to do this.  If you follow my blogs for making your entire yard organic and for including perennials and ground cover plants, your work will already be done.

I’ll be doing more blogs on famous organic gardens and their techniques, so keep an eye on this blog and feel free to share with all your friends.   Check all the categories and tags for the specific topic you want and just follow the simple steps.  Gardening made easy and organic.

In sync with nature,

Tova Roseman