How Kensington Palace Is Paying Special Tribute to Princess Diana This Summer
By Josh Duboff. Photos: Getty Images.
This August marks the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, and the royal family has been and will be marking the occasion in several different ways. One such tribute is a “temporary, all-white garden,” which was unveiled Thursday at Kensington Palace, next to the visitor’s entrance in what is known as the “sunken garden.”
The garden—which will remain open until September—has been named “the White Garden,” as it comprises about 12,000 white flowers (tulips, daffodils, hyacinths among them), as a means of celebrating “Diana’s life, her style and her image,” per a report from E! News. Additionally, there are 3,500 white forget-me-nots in the garden, which, according to Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, were her favorite flower, the Daily Mail says.
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The palace’s head gardener, Sean Harkin, explained some of the thinking behind the tribute. “Kensington Palace was the home of Princess Diana for 15 years and there's gardeners who aren't here any more but remember, and told me stories, about when they were working here in the Sunken Garden . . . They remember Princess Diana coming by and she would stop and she would admire the changing floral displays in the garden. We change them over in springtime and in summer, so it can look quite different. And she would stop, and she would have a chat with the gardeners and comment on all their hard work.”
The plan for the garden was devised in April of last year, and the flowers were planted in October. The garden was set to open at the end of this April, but the “recent good weather” in London caused the flowers to bloom ahead of schedule.
This story originally appeared on Vanity Fair.
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