The phrase “English garden” conjures up visions of romantic, almost-wild swaths of color-saturated rose bushes, aromatic sprays of lavender and the occasional gentle water feature in a bucolic setting.
Today’s gardens in bustling Greater London offer all that and more.
The city is chock-full of green spaces, from large manicured royal parks to tiny corners of urban growth and long, leaf-lined canal paths. And while the UNESCO World Heritage site Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is practically an amusement park for the green-thumbed, London offers a wealth of lesser-known verdant oases — and even ways for visitors to explore dozens of “hidden” gardens not normally on public view.
Visitors can get a taste of the city’s cultivation history at the Garden Museum, across the Thames River from the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben and housed in a deconsecrated Victorian church whose tower dates to medieval times.
On show are hand drawn 19th- and 20th-century garden blueprints and antique tools such as a blown-glass tube inside which straighter cucumbers could grow. There are also displays about gardening during the First and Second World Wars; a section that shares the legacy of Black botanists; and tales of early plant-hunters who traveled the world to gather species previously unseen in Britain such as tulips from the Ottoman Empire and sunflowers from Central America.
“And buried in our churchyard are a Lambeth local called John Tradescant and his son, who were 17th-century plant collectors,” Sarah Hardy, deputy director of the museum, said on a recent tour. Their tomb in the courtyard garden is surrounded by plants that are not native to Britain including bamboo and a Mexican dahlia, and is carved with depictions of other items they collected, such as seashells. (A second tomb is that of Capt. William Bligh of the H.M.S. Bounty who had been dispatched to transport breadfruit trees from Tahiti.)
Not far from the museum is the Chelsea Physic Garden, created by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London in 1673. Visitors can wander through areas such as “The Garden of Pharmaceutical Medicine” to see plants used to treat maladies; “The Garden of World Medicine” with plants featured in Chinese, Indian and Native American medicine; and “The Garden of Edible Plants.” (Elsewhere, watch for the skull and crossbones markers of poisonous plants.)
While many of London’s gardens have existed for ages, the seasons, climate change and the drive for sustainability are prompting new plantings and even new layouts.
At Kew, the redesigned wild rose garden flowered for the first time last summer and is expected to be at its peak this June. Kew’s Carbon Garden pavilion, created last year, “explores how planting can respond to a changing world, with more than 6,000 plants and dozens of climate-resilient trees, many flowering for the first time this summer,” Charles Shi, a botanical horticulturist at Kew, said in a statement. The pavilion includes species that the experts at Kew think will thrive in London’s climate three decades from now, such as the gray-blue succulent Parry’s agave.
“A visit to Kew offers gardens that are not only beautiful but also looking to the future,” Mr. Shi said.
Also being updated is the Great Fountain Garden at Hampton Court Palace, once home to King Henry VIII and his six wives.
A goal of the time-consuming redesign led by Ann-Marie Powell, announced in September 2024, is to future-proof the space. It was not as simple as planting a few bulbs.
“We’ve completed the design phase and the groundwork is well underway,” Ms. Powell said.
The area was first laid out under King William III and Queen Mary II between 1689 and 1696, she said, and “our approach is about writing the next chapter, not rewriting what’s already there. We’re blending the new with the old in a way that respects the garden’s extraordinary historic and horticultural heritage, while making it more sustainable, climate resilient and biodiverse.”
One element of that is her choice of plants, using Erodium manescavii, for example, as an alternative to geraniums. The Mediterranean native needs less watering and better tolerates dry spells, flowering longer than many other geraniums, Ms. Powell said.
Another substitution, Salvia verticillata, “Purple Rain” is more robust than traditional English lavender in humid climates and does well in clay soil without compromising aroma or pollinator value.
“Visitors this summer will be seeing the very beginning of that new chapter,” she said. “And I think there’s something rather wonderful about witnessing a great garden at the moment it starts to change.”
“Bold, color-rich perennial schemes beginning to establish within the sweep, marking a deliberate shift away from the energy-intensive annual bedding that has characterized the garden in recent decades,” Ms. Powell said. “It will be a garden finding its stride, but there will be real color and life.”
While all of these gardens can be visited for most or all of the year, London Open Gardens is an event that offers the public access to dozens of private and “secret” gardens across the city on just one weekend a year.
More than 120 gardens are taking part this June 6-7. It’s a way, for example, to visit Rosmead Garden without having to climb a fence as Julia Roberts’ and Hugh Grant’s characters did in the film “Notting Hill.”
This year there is a special ballot for entry to the roof gardens at the Battersea Power Station to walk among its 55 trees and 23,000 plants. Other highlights include Bedford Square, considered London’s finest Georgian square, and a guided tour of the Barbican Wildlife Garden, normally restricted to residents of the 2,000-unit Brutalist Barbican complex, including two ponds, a meadow and a bird-watching hide.
Tim Webb, who is serving as the event’s interim director, said “Visitors can check our interactive ‘Garden Selector’ on our website to search by name, location, whether dogs are welcome, or theme such as locations with activities for families, accessibility, those offering guided tours, have toilets, refreshments, craft stalls or allow picnics.”
Britain’s royals are known to be proud patrons of gardens and climate initiatives. In 2019, Catherine, Princess of Wales, co-designed a “Back to Nature” garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. This year, the event will take place May 19-23 on the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea with areas designed by top professionals; examples of innovative ways to bring touches of green to a balcony and to grow a container garden for the space-deprived; and vendors selling accessories, live plants and exotic flower bulbs.
Of special interest will be the Eden Project’s “Bring Me Sunshine Garden.” The multidomed environmental-regeneration center in Cornwall, England, is marking its 25th anniversary and is installing a solar-powered classroom at the flower show to inspire young people to consider green careers.
In another only-in-London experience, you can tread the paths of kings and queens in the garden behind Buckingham Palace from July 9 to September 27. Included in the price of a State Rooms tour is access to a newly signposted walking trail to see trees planted by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, wildflower meadows and a lake that attracts wildlife such as herons and blackcap warblers. Illustrations will detail how the palace is using climate-resilient plantings and harvesting rainwater. (A separate guided tour of garden highlights can also be booked for an additional charge in combination with a State Rooms ticket.)
And for that unique souvenir, drop by the Royal Collection Trust gift shop for a bottle of Buckingham Palace Dry Gin, made with 12 botanicals — including lemon verbena, hawthorn berries and mulberry leaves — handpicked from the palace garden.
Susanne Fowler is a former editor in the London and Paris offices of The New York Times.
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