Overview

• Eleven of twelve gardeners at Highgrove House have resigned over the past three years, with mass departures highlighted in media reports on July 21–22.
• Team members said King Charles’s handwritten red-ink critiques felt impolite and demoralizing, intensifying on-the-job pressure.
• Staff cited chronic understaffing and concerns over wages below industry benchmarks, and some reported work-related injuries under heavy workloads.
• The King’s Foundation insists gardeners receive standard pay, maintains turnover is below national averages and is actively recruiting a new gardening team.
• Since 1980 the king has personally driven Highgrove’s innovative garden designs, which draw up to 40,000 visitors annually as a showcase of private British horticulture.