Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Print subscriptions

The age of extinction

A new haven for wildlife: London’s Queen Elizabeth II garden opens to the public – in pictures

This article is more than 1 month old

A new two-acre garden in memory of Queen Elizabeth II has opened to the public, providing a refuge for the city’s flora and fauna in Regent’s Park. From a wildflower meadow to swift boxes in a water tower, the space has been designed as an oasis of biodiversity

The garden’s diverse mix of habitats, including wildflower meadows and native hedgerows, is already attracting a wide range of species Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

The age of extinction is supported by

theguardian.org

About this content

Tue 28 Apr 2026 05.00 EDT

A young woman tends to a flowerbed — Gardeners from the Royal Parks busy at work ahead of the garden’s public opening
Share

Information board next to a pond shows different flowers next to a photograph of the late Queen Elizabeth II — The garden opened yesterday, in the same month of what what would have been the queen’s 100th birthday, on 21 April
Share

A water tower in an ornamental garden — A former water storage tower has swift nesting boxes and refuges for bats integrated into its new roof and brickwork
Share

A bed of flowers including white daffodils and ferns — The garden’s team carried out a planting trial to see how different soil compositions affected plant growth and resilience, to ensure the new garden can thrive in a changing climate
Share

Fields of white and yellow flowers growing next to a pond, backed by trees — When Matthew Halsall, the manager and landscape architect behind the project, began designing the garden three years ago, he saw the potential for the site to become a haven for biodiversity in London. ‘It’s right in the heart of Regent’s Park, surrounded by many different habitat types, and therefore an important project in terms of wildlife-habitat reclamation,’ he says
Share

Yellow flowers growing out of flooded ground — The garden is specifically designed for changes to the British climate, such as warmer, wetter winters and dryer, hotter summers. Interconnected channels, or swales, ensure rainwater flows slowly through the garden, reducing the need for irrigation and creating very wet habitats in winter, which then become partially dry in summer
Share

Four gardeners working in flowerbeds, with London’s BT tower in the distance — Gardeners from the Royal Parks working in the garden in Regent’s Park’s inner circle. The garden covers two acres (8,000 sq metres)
Share

Tulips with red outer petals and white inner petals — Tulipa clusiana ‘Cynthia’, a two-tone tulip. The flowers chosen for the garden include many of the late queen’s favourites
Share

A flowerbed of grape hyacinths — Bees, ladybirds and butterflies are already thriving among the 200,000 spring bulbs planted in the garden, including these grape hyacinths
Share

Red tulips — Tulipa linifolia are also thriving in the garden
Share

A pond surrounded by white and yellow flowers — A large ornamental pond of naturally filtered water provides a new aquatic habitat for plants, insects and amphibians
Share

A field of wildflowers in hazy sunlight — The garden includes more than 40 new trees, about 2,000 sq metres of wildflower meadow, more than 5,000 sq metres of climate-resilient plants and an extra 100 metres of native mixed hedgerow
Share

Closeup of a wildflowers growing among grasses — Different habitats mean visitors walk through a more formally designed landscape towards a wildflower meadow
Share

Explore more on these topics

Most viewed

Most viewed