QE II Garden - new sight in London’s Regent’s Park !

This has received a lot of publicity over the past few weeks.
It looks wonderful.

Thank you for the share Cyn! We’ll be sure to stop by in September! It looks lovely.

Thanks for the note, Cyn, it has been all over the BBC too

We got to visit the garden this morning, and it was enjoyable. The ongoing London heatwave/drought has caused a hosepipe (hose) ban across the city, and most parks and lawns have pretty much looked like dry straw. Londoner’s can water to their heart’s content, as long as they only use a watering can. There are two boreholes (wells) in Regent’s Park that allow them to provide their own water, and bypass the ban, that has allowed them to use some water, to get some grass to remain green, and to help keep the plants at this garden thriving.

The prevalent color there right now is purple - lots of Loosestrife, and some other plants with blossoms in various shades of purple. There are plenty of Black-Eyed Susans with deep yellow petals (and a black core, of course), and also some plants providing reds among all the green leaves.

I was told that there was a big “bulb” show before the garden opened to the public in April, and a park gardener suggested that daffodils would be the highlights this coming January for our next London visit, in the “meadow” area at the north end of the garden.

Entering the garden from the south, just past an Espresso Bar building (coffee, restrooms, drinking fountain), you emerge into a plaza with a rectangular pond (manmade - see the borehole note above) surrounded by plants, and ringed with fabulous wooden benches. They’re far more comfortable than the regular park benches leading up to this garden - with wide wooden armrests (for that coffee cup?) and backrests that aren’t reclining way too far. The pond has darling little water lilies (more purplish petals), and was swarming today with dragonflies. There’s a welcoming sign with the queen’s face, with her wearing purple (imagine that!), and photos of some of her favorite plants that are part of the garden, including Myrtle and Magnolia. There will be South African, Australian, and Mediterranean plants, too.

There’s a hollow, rectangular tower beyond the pond, with winding wrought metal tracings on the outside representing the UK - English rose, Welsh leek, Scottish thistle, Northern Irish shamrock - and also the silhouette of one Corgi. The tower’s expected to attract some bats. I didn’t see swifts today, which are apparently going be common birds around there, but instead, only saw a single pigeon. Beyond that is the rolling “meadow,” with more, smaller depressions among plants that could be tiny ponds in the future, but the drought has caused them to be kept dry. The plants showing in that meadow could use a drink, but the four gardeners working today were all very busy keeping the garden going under the circumstances, and a fan sprinkler was spraying away.

The garden is where the greenhouses for all the Royal Parks had been located, but those have been relocated to Hyde Park. Concrete from the old greenhouses’ floors was broken up, and used to made some rolling terrain variations, and to put plants between, so that it’s well-draining. That will be important when rainier conditions return. The QE II garden is still just getting established, but it’s going to be a wonderful, unique 2 acres within Regent’s Park.

Thanks for sharing your experience- we visited in early June, after the first heatwave but before any hosepipe bans, and it was beautiful- glad they are able to keep watering it a bit! I truly hope the recent weather and changes to the climate prompt the building of more reservoirs- for a lot of reasons, but also so we can keep our nice green spaces green.

Thank you for posting.

I will be going to London in October for my second visit and Regent's Park is on my "Hope to Visit" List.

I just subscribed to the Londonist through the link that you posted.

I'm a huge fan of beautiful gardens. Honestly, this one is meh. I saw it in May. The Queen Mary rose garden is much prettier although neither is worth going out of your way to see considering all the other sights to see and things to do in London.