{"id":2156265,"date":"2025-11-14T12:06:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2156265"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:06:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:06:26","slug":"we-worked-for-king-charles-he-always-asks-for-one-present-royal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/we-worked-for-king-charles-he-always-asks-for-one-present-royal-news\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We worked for King Charles \u2013 he always asks for one present’ | Royal | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With estimates of his wealth varying between \u00a3640\u202fmillion and \u00a32\u202fbillion, there\u2019s no question that King Charles III<\/a> could afford to buy more or less anything he wanted. Which leaves friends, relatives, and well-wishers with a tricky problem as he reaches his 77th birthday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the question,\u201d says the King\u2019s former butler, Grant Harrold. \u201cWhat do you give the person who has everything?\u201d<\/p>\n

Grant, who worked for His Majesty between 2004 and 2011, says that the King, who has been described by Alan Titchmarsh as \u201cthe best royal gardener in history,\u201d has always liked a gift that he could use in his beloved garden at Highgrove<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would always ask for things for the garden,\u201d Grant exclusively told The Express. \u201cHe\u2019s previously asked for benches, plants and trees. Gardening is his real passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Royal gardener Jack Stooks echoed Grant\u2019s words, telling us that The King would almost always ask for plants and things for the garden: \u201cThat\u2019s what he tends to put on his list,\u201d Jack said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jack added: \u201cHe would ask for trees, shrubs, roses, hedging. He would plant them at one of the royal gardens, either Clarence House, Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Sandringham, or up in Scotland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, the King has received dozens of presents from celebrities. Jack recalled: \u201cElton John gave him an Indian bean tree, a golden Indian bean tree that used to grow at Highgrove, which unfortunately has now died.<\/p>\n

\u201cPierce Brosnan and his wife gave the King a Magnolia. The King planted it in the apple orchard by the Orchard Room; it\u2019s a massive tree now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey actually once came around the garden and I met them both, and they were just so lovely and down to earth and normal. We showed them the tree that they\u2019d gifted him years before, which was really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jack also revealed: \u201cSting and Trudie Styler gave the King and Camilla a whole Fritillaria, snakes head fritillaria, and that all went into the meadow. It’s so nice when people can come and look at gifts that they’ve given the King, especially when they\u2019re growing so well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s such a nice idea to have, the kind of gift giving that keeps on giving year after year with flowers, trees, with other people enjoying it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The King\u2019s love for nature, which dates back to his early days as a student at Gordonstoun, is well-known. \u201cMy interest in gardening was always there,\u201d the King, then Prince Charles, said in 2010.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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His Majesty added: \u201cAs a child my sister and I were given a little plot at Buckingham Palace at the back of the border for growing vegetables. But it\u2019s not until you have somewhere of your own that it becomes more possible\u2026 The thing about [Highgrove] was that it was a blank canvas; I had to start from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n

King Charles, affectionately known by his 11-strong gardening team as \u201cThe Boss,\u201d takes a very hands-on r\u00f4le at Highgrove.<\/p>\n

Head of Gardens Brian Corr told the\u00a0Royal Horticultural Society website <\/a>that King Charles often carries a pruning saw on his regular tours of the garden.<\/p>\n

The King says he particularly enjoys an \u201cevening patrol\u201d at the weekend: \u201cAs I potter about I notice things and weed or prune bits off. I\u2019m sure most people come here and think I don\u2019t do anything. But I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t shy away from physically taxing tasks such as hedge-laying either: \u201cIt keeps you relatively sane,\u201d he said, \u201cand it\u2019s very good exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With estimates of his wealth varying between \u00a3640\u202fmillion and \u00a32\u202fbillion, there\u2019s no question that King Charles III could afford to buy more or less anything he wanted. Which leaves friends, relatives, and well-wishers with a tricky problem as he reaches his 77th birthday. \u201cThat\u2019s the question,\u201d says the King\u2019s former butler, Grant Harrold. \u201cWhat do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2156266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[347827,412898,412897,183049,372855],"class_list":["post-2156265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-gardening","tag-highgrove","tag-highgrove-house","tag-king-charles-iii","tag-royal-gifts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/We-worked-for-King-Charles-\u2013-he-always-asks-for.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2156265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2156267,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156265\/revisions\/2156267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2156266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2156265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2156265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2156265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}