Secrets of Prince Charles' gorgeous Highgrove garden revealed

Spectacular: Camassia, buttercups and dandelions bloom in the wildflower meadow in front of Highgrove House - a vital addition for the area's insect population

The gardens are the culmination of more 30 years work and have been transformed from a brown path and a wilted lawn transformed into a veritable bower of blooms.

Each has a different character and were created with input from some of the UK's leading garden designers, among them the Marchioness of Salisbury, Rosemary Verey, Miriam Rothschild and Sir Roy Strong.

And despite Prince Charles' penchant for tradition, not all of the gardens are formal, among them the gorgeous wild flower meadow.

One of the most striking parts of the Highgrove Estate, the meadow, first planted 30 years ago, is home to a huge variety of wildflowers and buzzes with insect life in Spring - much to the delight of the eco-conscious royal.

Elaborate: The Carpet Garden is packed with exotic blooms and was inspired by a Turkish rug that decorates one of the rooms in Highgrove House

Peaceful: The gorgeous Cottage Garden is packed with traditional perennials and includes Prince Charles' old fashioned summer house which he uses for writing

Another eye-catching part of the garden includes the Thyme Walk, a fragrant pathway edged by herbs, that runs from the Dovecote to the Terrace Garden.

The new book, which comes complete with lavish photographs of the house and garden, is a joint project authored by the Prince of Wales and landscape architect Bunny Guinness.

Writing in the Telegraph, Ms Guinness reveals that she spent months getting to know the gardens at Highgrove, describing them as 'sublime' and 'exhilarating'.

For his own part, Prince Charles calls the work at Highgrove a labour of love and says he was inspired by the idea of creating an organic garden.

Speaking about the increasingly industrialised approach to farming adopted elsewhere, he said: 'I minded terribly the more I thought about things, the endless use of chemicals and in the long term felt that this was unsustainable.

Favourite: The Sundial Garden is crammed with Prince Charles' beloved delphiniums in summer as well as traditional British blooms such as Hollyhocks

Wildlife: The wildflower meadow at Highgrove is filled with insect-friendly flora such as poppies and daisies and provides a habitat for local fauna

'I wanted to restore lost habitats and plant lots of hedgerows and trees and to heal the landscape.'

He added: I have put my heart and soul into Highgrove – and I will continue to do so while I can. I find it hard to believe that by the time this book is published I shall have been at Highgrove for almost 34 years.

'My enduring hope is that those who visit the garden may find something to inspire, excite, fascinate or soothe them.'

On this showing, finding something to inspire or excite at Highgrove ought not prove too difficult for most of us.

Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated, £35, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and is available from highgroveshop.com. Profits from sales will be donated to The Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation.

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