Celebrate Queen Elizabeth 11’s Platinum Jubilee With The Joy And Beauty Of Flowers

If you’re a flower lover like the Queen, why not mark the Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend by creating a beautiful floral centrepiece or planting flower pots featuring her favourite buds?

The Queen has ruled for longer than any other monarch in British history, helping make her a much loved and revered figure across the globe. From June 2-5 fans across the UK and other parts of the world are coming together to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee after 70 years of dedicated service. Whether it’s watching Trooping the Colour, the traditional parade to mark the Queen’s official birthday, and the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, a specially organised pageant/carnival, or simply attending a street party with neighbours, there are lots of ways people plan to take part in the celebrations. However, if you’re a nature lover like Her Majesty, a touching way to pay tribute to her is to display a floral fantasy that comes with the royal stamp of approval.

Leading decorative garden screen company Screen With Envy has listed some of the most common flowers in six of the Queen’s private gardens. And some of the blooms named by the company launched by Sophie Birkert can easily beautify your home and outdoor areas.

Whether you want to make a stunning centrepiece or start potting uplifting buds around your favourite spaces, here are the flowers favoured by Queen Elizabeth II.

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Clematis

Clematis, seen in 100 percent of the Queen’s private gardens, is the kind of climber that can be seen up trellises, over arbours and threading themselves hreading themselves through other plants. There are many varieties of the plant featured throughout all of the palace gardens, including a beautiful purple variety featured at Windsor Castle, named after the late Prince Philip.

As the ultimate climbers, you can buy them fully grown and add them to a garden wall for a beautiful backdrop or to hide any eyesores. While they are known for their long, flowering vines, you can plant clematis in a pot for a more polished look. Alternatively, you can add clematis to your tablescape, bringing a burst of colour and sweet-smelling fragrance to any space.

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Daffodils

As daffodils are the national flower of Wales, they hold a special place in the Queen’s heart and are also found in all of her private gardens. In fact, the Queen has even had a daffodil especially made for her in 2012 called the Narcissus ‘Diamond Jubilee’, as well as other varieties of the flower especially bred for her. While you won’t be able to get your hands on those, there are others, such as the Tazetta daffodils and the fragrant Pheasant’s Eye daffodils, that are easy to find.

Bulbous flowers make gorgeous bouquets to enjoy inside as they bring a bright pop of colour into your home. If you have green fingers, you can even try growing them inside. Miniature varieties are ideal for growing indoors and look charming planted close together in a pot.

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Pink & red roses

The Queen is known to love roses and they are featured throughout all six of the private gardens that were analysed. There are beds of 3,500 rose bushes planted in a geometric pattern at Windsor castle. And according to the Royal Collection Trust, some of the sweetly fragranced roses have been picked and used in table decorations at banquets. Meanwhle, at Buckingham Palace there are 60 rose bushes that grow in each of the 25 beds, and each bed contains a different variety of rose, chosen for its fragrance, colour and disease resistance. However, it is red and pink roses that appear in all of Her Majesty’s gardens, rather than the orange, white and yellow ones, which feature in 83.33 percent of gardens.

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Une publication partagée par Royal Collection Trust (@royalcollectiontrust)

Channel the Queen by using roses as a centrepiece or try creating a floral installation. Whether it's a single blush bloom or a bright collection of unexpected shades, there isn’t a wrong way to include the bud's multiple varieties and colourways. You can also include roses in unexpected ways by having them spill out of a lantern or cascade off the table. Another budget-friendly version is to have a single rose in a tall slim glass container spaced along the table or throughout the house.

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Herbaceous Border

From Buckingham Palace’s 156-metre herbaceous border to Sandringham House Garden’s beautiful herbaceous borders designed by renowned landscape architect Geffory Jellicoe, it’s a must-have in any royal garden. In spring, there are beautiful displays of rhododendrons and magnolias, and the gardens are informally planted in a cottage garden style. The borders are a display of colours from reds, oranges and yellows through to blues, mauves and a complete sensory overload.

From delphiniums and phloxes to daylilies and heleniums, there definitely isn’t a shortage of flowers featured. Bold varieties like plume poppies (Macleaya) draw the attention of your eye, while the dark green backdrop of shrubs creates a perfect canvas for all the colours. You can incorporate some of these varieties in pots or as decorative features around your outdoor space.

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Wisteria

Although not spotted in all of the Queen's private gardens, the wisteria that does feature is beautiful, bright and bold. Take Buckingham Palace's wisteria-clad summer house or the wisteria that blooms in the Windsor Castle moat garden.

With its beautiful purple (or white) colour and sweet-smelling fragrance, wisteria stands elegantly in a vase, draped over an arch or filling from a vase with other blooms. There isn’t a shortage of ways to show off this bloom, and you can even use dried wisteria for dried arrangements.

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Rhododendron

Rhododendrons are popular woodland shrubs that put on a spectacular flowering display from spring to early summer. This variety features in five or Her Majesty's six private gardens. There is also a rhododendron bred especially for the Queen named 'London Calling' in honour of her 70th birthday. This beautiful flower can be seen at Buckingham Palace, Holyroodhouse Palace, Sandringham House, Hillsborough Castle and Balmoral Castle.

While rhododendrons thrive in more informal woodland-style gardens, you can still plant them in your backyard. There are also some varieties, such as the Maddenia rhododendron or rhododendron yakushimanum, that can be grown in compost in containers.