The royal family have an impressive array of gardens across their estates from palaces to castles or grounds - but they don't come cheap. Royal gardens in the UK attract millions of visitors annually, with Windsor Great Park in particular, welcoming 5.5 million visitors each year. Other popular sites include the five Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) gardens, which see more than 3 million visitors each year and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which attracted 2.45 million in 2023-2024. Despite their contribution to the economy, royal gardens are notoriously costly to maintain.

New data sourced by the garden experts at Hillarys through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Crown Estate, Royal Parks and Historic Royal Palaces revealed that royal gardens have cost the taxpayer £282million since 2020, or £129,000 every day. As nearly 30% more people cited cost as a barrier to gardening in 2024 than in 2019, garden experts at Hillarys, who specialise in outdoor awnings and pergolas, spoke with gardener Luke Newnes, who shared royal garden trends that can be replicated on a budget this spring.

£1,500,000 - £2,000,000

Luke says: "The castle sits within the wider 5,000-acre Windsor Great Park estate, often described as covering the equivalent of 269 tennis courts, with formal gardens and landscaped grounds surrounding it that require regular maintenance.

"The grounds are complete with over 3,500 perfumed rose bushes of eight different English varieties arranged in a geometric layout, requiring extensive seasonal pruning, feeding, and care, and large areas of ornamental lawns, hedges and flower beds."

He adds that other impressive features include 34 orange trees sent to George IV by the French King, Charles X and yew topiary domes.

£700,000 - £850,000

Luke says: "The Highgrove House gardens cover around 15 acres within the wider Highgrove estate and feature numerous themed areas and intricate planting designs.

"Contributing to their costly upkeep are numerous high-maintenance topiary forms, including carefully shaped yew hedges, which require precise and regular trimming to maintain their sculptural appearance."

The expert adds that other areas include wildflower meadows, naturalistic planting and rare heritage plant collections, including the Natural Collection of Hostas, which require expert horticultural care and monitoring.

He says the gardens have also been managed using fully organic principles since the early 1990s, which would require regular labour-intensive manual maintenance, such as hand weeding and composting.

£300,000 - £450,000

Luke says: "The Prince and Princess of Wales' garden at Kensington Palace features manicured areas such as the Sunken Garden, with seasonal displays of tulips, wallflowers and pansies, and a large privacy hedge to shield it from public viewpoints and photographers.

"The Sunken Garden, which was known to be a favourite of Princess Diana's, is terraced with areas of lawn, paving and ornamental flower beds, surrounding a central ornamental pond."

He says that to mark the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's passing in 2017, the palace's gardeners transformed the space into The White Garden in her memory.

Using flowers in white and soft pastel colours, the display took inspiration from items from the Princess's wardrobe, then on display in the palace.

£250,000-£450,000

"The Grade II-listed Royal Lodge sits in Windsor Great Park on approximately 40 hectares (98 acres) of land, including formal gardens, lawns, woodland, drives, and landscaped grounds," Luke says.

The gardens are likely to require a dedicated team of around four to six full-time gardeners, he suggests.

According to the Hilary's expert, they would require meticulous maintenance, including mowing and maintaining the sprawling lawns, tree and woodland management, repairs to paths, walls, drainage, and irrigation and seasonal planting and landscaping.

Royal Lodge also boasts a dedicated gardener's cottage, reflecting the scale of maintenance required to care for the extensive gardens and parkland surrounding the royal residence.