Historic Royal Palaces has announced plans for a stunning new Superbloom display at the Tower of London to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
From March, 20 million carefully selected seeds will be sown in the Tower’s famous moat, creating a vibrant sea of flowers which will continuously evolve from June to September, changing colours and patterns throughout the summer. With a planting scheme designed to attract bees, pollinators and seed-eating birds, the display will provide a biodiverse space to support wildlife. The Superbloom will be the first stage of a permanent transformation of the moat into a new natural landscape in the heart of the City of London.
Historic Royal Palaces is working with landscape architects Grant Associates and University of Sheffield Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture, Nigel Dunnett – both of whom have extensive expertise in urban horticulture and landscape design – to bring the project to life.
Their design will bring a burst of spectacular natural beauty to the Tower, whilst creating a significant new and much needed resource for pollinators and seed-eating birds. Early tests in summer 2021 demonstrated the power of even a small number of flowers to increase the biodiversity in the moat. When the Superbloom display ends in September 2022, the new natural landscape created to support it will remain in the moat as a permanent Jubilee legacy.
The Tower’s Superbloom will also celebrate the value of nature to our wellbeing. The positive impact of green space on health is widely recognised and the pandemic has highlighted its importance. It is hoped that the transformation of the moat – a previously underused space – will inspire similar positive change across the country. Schoolchildren are being invited to take part in a major schools initiative to support the project, growing their own displays created from a special palette of seeds to bloom alongside the one at the Tower – and learning about what gardens can do to improve sustainability and support ecology as part of that process.
There are also plans to host smaller floral displays across other Historic Royal Palaces sites to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, including at Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace and Hillsborough Castle.
Tom O’Leary, Public Engagement Directory, Historic Royal Palaces said, “We’re thrilled to be bringing some joy, colour and spectacle to the Tower of London in 2022, in celebration of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. Everyone at the Tower is looking forward to sharing the project with everyone as it develops – and hoping for some luck with the weather next spring!
“We hope that this thriving new landscape, surrounding London’s formidable fortress, will celebrate the power of nature to unite us all.”
Nigel Dunnett, Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture, University of Sheffield said, “We hope that the effect of being surrounded by a sea of colourful, sparkling and vibrant flowers will release feelings of pure liberated joy in visitors to the Superbloom – it will be such a powerful, emotional and celebratory experience. We’ve undertaken a lot of testing and trials to ensure that we deliver dramatic and beautiful impressionistic blends of colours, a long and continuous sequence of flowering, and a wonderful place for pollinating insects.”
Tickets for the display are now on sale with discounted combination tickets for the Tower of London and Superbloom available for groups of 15 or more. For more information contact [email protected].
