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For over 160 years, the gardens at the British royal family’s Sandringham Estate have grown and changed alongside the monarchy. The 60 acres surrounding the private royal home in Norfolk aren’t the result of one designer or time period. Instead, each monarch left their mark, adding features like Victorian lakes, woodland plantings, cottage-style borders, and most recently, King Charles III’s focus on biodiversity, conservation, and skilled gardening.
This week, the historic gardens welcome a new showcase with the inaugural RHS Sandringham Flower Show, running from July 22 to July 26. The Royal Horticultural Society’s newest event brings together designers, landscapers, and exhibitors from all over the U.K. for five days of show gardens, floral displays, and gardening inspiration.
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Queen Camilla and King Charles walk through the first-ever RHS Sandringham Flower Show.
Although Sandringham is known as the country estate where the royal family celebrates Christmas, its sprawling gardens have been a popular destination for several years. Here’s what to know about the royal oasis.
A Landscape Shaped by Generations of Monarchs
Set within the 20,000-acre Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, the gardens have been continuously developed since Queen Victoria purchased the property in 1862 for her eldest son, Albert Edward, who would become King Edward VII. While Sandringham House was rebuilt in the late 1800s in its unique Jacobethan style, the main layout of the formal gardens is still much like it was during Edward and Queen Alexandra’s time.
“The gardens of Sandringham have been developed in turn by each Monarch since 1863,” the estate’s website explains, making the property something of a living timeline of royal horticultural tastes.
Today, the gardens include woodlands, lakes, flowers, herbaceous borders, rock gardens, specimen trees, and arboretum plantings, all surrounded by acres of parkland and forest. Visitors can also see champion trees, National Plant Collections, water gardens, and large groups of seasonal bulbs that keep the landscape changing throughout the year.
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Sandringham House and its gardens display shades of red, orange, and yellow during the fall.
The Estate’s Victorian Grandeur
Early royals created some of Sandringham’s most important features. In the 1880s, the future Edward VII asked landscape gardener James Pulham to create two ornamental lakes fed by natural springs. Pulham, known for his detailed rockwork, used Pulhamite, an artificial stone popular in Victorian landscapes, to make dramatic rock formations. These lakes are still highlights today, with their edges blending into plants that attract wildlife.
Close by is one of the estate’s oldest trees, an oak thought to be over 800 years old. Queen Victoria added her own touch by planting another oak in 1889. Other trees, like a giant redwood planted by Princess Christian of Denmark, are scattered throughout the gardens.
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Sandringham’s gardens feature layers of plants and scenic water that help shape the Norfolk estate.
While the gardens near the house are more precise, much of the estate opens up into wide clearings with foliage, flowering shrubs, and water features, giving the area a softer, more natural feel.
Geoffrey Jellicoe and the Cottage-Garden Influence
One of the most beloved parts of the gardens was created in 1947, when King George VI asked well-known British landscape architect Geoffrey Jellicoe to design the North Garden.
Instead of focusing on rigid shapes, Jellicoe chose a relaxed cottage-garden style, full of flowering perennials, bright colors, and full plantings. The garden looks its best in late July, when tall flowers attract bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, making it one of the estate’s most lively summer sights. This relaxed planting style stands out from the more structured areas of the estate and is still one of the best examples of postwar British garden design at Sandringham.
Queen Elizabeth II’s Woodland Gardens Expansion
Queen Elizabeth II also made a lasting mark on the gardens. At her request, in the 1960s, renowned landscape designer Sir Eric Savill created the Shrubbery. It’s a shaded woodland path filled with rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, and magnolias, many of which came from Windsor Great Park.
This area is now a spring highlight, with masses of blossoms that lead into layers of woodland plants under a canopy of trees. Along with the lakes, woodland, and cottage garden, the Shrubbery has helped shape the layered landscape visitors see today.
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The gardens at Sandringham in May 1994.
King Charles III Transforms the Gardens
The biggest changes to the gardens have happened under the supervision of King Charles III. When he took over managing Sandringham Estate in 2017, then-Prince Charles started by focusing on the larger landscape. He switched the estate’s farming to organic methods and worked to boost biodiversity, soil health, agroforestry, and habitat restoration. Once those efforts were in place, he began working on the formal gardens.
His goal was to restore old features while creating gardens that inspire visitors and show how climate-friendly gardening can work. The highlight of this work is the Topiary Garden, finished in 2023. Its geometric design, inspired in part by the detailed Cosmati Pavement at Westminster Abbey, mixes clipped yews with over 5,000 perennial plants chosen in part for their ecological benefits.
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Sandringham’s Laughing Buddha sculpture was gifted to the future Edward VII by Admiral Sir Henry Keppel as a housewarming present in the late 19th century. A new pavilion, designed by The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts, now shelters the sculpture after the original was removed in the 1960s.
Rather than using traditional box hedges, which are more at risk from pests and disease, the garden uses disease-resistant yew varieties. Additionally, the plants were chosen to give pollinators nectar all season long, while the flowering perennials add soft waves of color.
Nearby is the Lower Maze Garden, which was completed in 2024. Inspired by the King’s childhood memories of exploring mazes at Sandringham, it adds a playful touch and continues the geometric style of the Topiary Garden. The new Sundial Garden, finished in 2025, helps bring back the formal structure that was lost when earlier parterre gardens were removed in the 1900s.
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The maze garden at Sandringham was part of King Charles’s updates to the estate.
In other parts of the estate, Charles has led extensive new planting projects. He’s added hundreds of ornamental trees, including a new Acer Glade with Japanese maples and other trees known for their autumn colors. The 400-yard Magnolia Walk features different types of magnolias mixed with oaks and maples for year-round displays. Wide borders of ornamental shrubs have also been planted to help create another tree canopy on the estate.
Early spring bulbs like snowdrops and daffodils add more color before the trees get their leaves. Meanwhile, roses, magnolias, camellias, and rhododendrons keep the gardens looking beautiful for the rest of the growing season.
Many of these new features share the goal of boosting biodiversity and giving visitors places to enjoy the gardens that reflect more than a century of royal horticulture.
Brea Cubit is an award-winning journalist who covers culture, entertainment, fashion, business, and more. When she’s not writing and editing, she enjoys listening to live music, binge-watching nostalgic TV, and shopping at artisan markets.