London has a really new garden. Queen Mary’s formal rose garden up near the zoo in the Regent’s Park is a stalwart classic, still looking immaculate in early autumn. Now, next door to it, is Queen Elizabeth’s, as different as two queens can be. Our late monarch is celebrated in a thoroughly modern, 21st century way, with a swelling plateau largely of grasses, crouching or brandishing sheaves of all the colours related to corn. Wide paths wander through it; the main one of flecked concrete composed, we’re told, of demolished buildings on the site. Winding secondary paths have an annoying gritty surface.
Surveying it all from the top is a brick gazebo or lookout that was once a water tower. Behind it the roofs of some banal buildings, will soon be screened by newly planted trees. The rest of the garden is surrounded by the tall green wall of the Regent’s park.
In October the dominant colours are of the grasses, with here and there a brilliant pop of blue; under them we’re told are thousands of spring bulbs. I shall go in April, but meanwhile we have a thoroughly consistent and memorable example of modern planting to admire.
