King Charles’ Gardener of 21 Years Opens up About What He’s Like in Private: ‘Quite Odd...'

As the heir to the throne and now King, Charles has lived with every possible luxury. Yet, he has remained surprisingly simple in his ways. According to the monarch’s former gardener, he has ‘normality’ in his royal lifestyle. While the gardener found it ‘quite odd’ to take orders directly from someone of such high status, he explains that it revealed everything about the monarch's personality.

Jack Stooks worked as a gardener shaping the landscapes at Charles and Queen Camilla’s residence, Highgrove House, for 21 years. Throughout his time maintaining the lush green gardens, Stooks often interacted with the King and his family members. Talking to OK! magazine, the gardener appreciated how Charles was highly involved in his work. He said, “He was very much on the ball all the time. If he came home at the weekend, he would be out in the garden checking what's been done, what hasn't been done.” Every Monday, the then-Prince of Wales had one comment for Stooks that explained what the former was like in private. The gardener shared, “He would be like, 'This needs doing, that needs doing.’ So, it was really good to know that you're working for somebody who actually took everything in.” Charles’s involvement in the gardens of his house gave a ‘sense of satisfaction’ to Stooks as he knew “that it was actually being enjoyed and admired by the person who owns it.” For his immense love for gardening, Charles is considered the most green-fingered monarch, as per Blooming Haus.

The former royal gardener also revealed that he got to know Camilla, Prince William, Prince Harry, and Kate Middleton closely. Unlike Meghan Markle, who described the royal family members as being formal all the time and perhaps even cold at times in her Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, Stooks found them to be normal. He said, “I think for me it's just the normality of how they are as people, and, you know, I think when people are looking in from outside they go, 'Oh, why do we have to give them our little bit of money every year? We shouldn't have to do that, how dare they, he's not our King, he is not this, he's not that,' but the amount of work they do for the country is just immense.”

Amid the monarch’s cancer battle, the gardener described him as a ‘trooper’ for his sheer dedication toward his duties. Lauding the sovereign, Stooks continued, “You see the amount of work he's still doing, and he's just not giving up. He could just say, you know, 'I'm ill, I can't do this,' and the country will go. Okay, fine, but he's like, ‘No, I've got a sense of duty.’” He further went on to hail Camilla for always standing by Charles’s side. The monarch was diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer last year, which forced him to take a brief break from his duties. He has since returned to public duties, making also state visits abroad, while still seeking treatment for his illness.