If you’re a charity or community group in Central London, you could decorate your buildings with free flowers from the Royal Parks.
Hyde Park nursery (c) ianVisits
The Royal Parks runs a large garden nursery in Hyde Park, where it grows all the bedding plants and flowers that decorate the parks and provide the floral displays that fill the space in front of Buckingham Palace.
As insurance against bad weather, they grow more than they usually need. But if the weather gods are kind, that means they have more plants than they can use. So rather than sending them to compost, the surplus is given to local community groups each year – and applications for this year open on Wednesday 1st April 2026.
Applicants must be organisations based in Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, or Camden. They must be either a local charity, a community group supporting people who couldn’t afford to buy plants, or a non-fee-charging school.
Successful applicants can collect free plants in June/July and October/November.
The full details and the application form for this year are here. Successful applicants will be informed in early June.
Who knows? With a few minutes spent filling out a form and some nice weather, your community group could be decorated with Royal flowers this year.
Applications from other types of groups may be considered if surplus plants are still available after all qualifying applications have been considered.