When the Prince and Princess of Wales welcomed their son, Prince George, in 2013, King Charles became a grandfather for the first time.
To celebrate the birth of his grandson, Charles bestowed an extraordinary and priceless gift upon him.
In a 2021 interview with the BBC, when he was still the Prince of Wales, Charles revealed that he had created an arboretum in the gardens of Birkhall on the Balmoral estate in Scotland and named it after Prince George.
“This was a rather empty field that the farm didn’t need anymore,” he said. “The great thing was that I managed to plant it the same year that my grandson was born, the eldest, George, so I thought I’d call it Prince George’s wood.”
The King referred to the project as an “old man’s obsession” and added: “It is really for autumn colour and a bit of spring. But autumn is the magic up here. So finding all the interesting trees and shrubs that turn an interesting colour is half the battle.”
George, ten, who is second in line to the throne, will one day be King. Following the passing of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, the Balmoral estate was inherited by Charles. Eventually, it will pass to Prince William and later to Prince George.
The King appears eager for his grandchildren to develop an interest in gardening, just like him. In 2015, a then two-year-old George helped his grandpa plant two trees at Charles’s Gloucestershire estate, Highgrove.
And speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time in 2016, Charles said of his grandson: “You never know, do you, what people are going to be interested in.
“The most important thing is I got him planting a tree or two here, so we planted it together and shoveled in the earth. That’s the way, I think, when you are very small, and then each time they come you say, ‘Do you see how much the tree has grown, or whatever?’ and you hope that they take an interest.”
