King Charles III has eight homes in the U.K., including Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, a little over two hours from London. It's quite the elaborate and historic property with a nine-bedroom house set on 900 acres; there's even an Amazon Prime documentary about Highgrove House. A major highlight of Highgrove is its gardens, which are open for guided tours. King Charles even played a major role in the design of the gardens, as viewers of Netflix's "The Crown" may remember. He's remained passionate
about the gardens for decades. But it sounds like he might be more controlling than is helpful as he continues to exert power over the gardens. In fact, his micromanaging may have led to 11 of 12 full-time gardeners quitting over the past couple of years, according to a recent report in The Sunday Times.
The king apparently wanders the grounds and then provides feedback on what he saw in the form of memos written in red ink. They aren't all negative, but the ones that were sounded like they were bordering on insufferable. Reportedly, they included notes citing the need to removing one singular ragwort from the edge of the pool and calling out the use of unacceptable grammar. There was even a time that a gardener didn't know enough about a flower during his probation period. The king apparently said of him, "'Don't put that man in front of me again.'" Harsh!
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King Charles' Demands Could Have Contributed To A Need For Counseling For Highgrove Gardeners
This level of scrutiny from King Charles III was reportedly directed at some gardeners making just minimum wage, and that overall, the garden staff just didn't have the resources to be able to keep things at the level of perfection that the king is asking for. Jack Stooks, who worked as a gardener at Highgrove for 21 years, confirmed that the king would often be found making the rounds in the gardens. And his perspective seemed to be that it was nice to get direct feedback from the king. But apparently, not everyone felt that way. The Sunday Times wrote that a review of the situation by The King's Foundation seemed to confirm that there was a problem with morale and management amongst the Highgrove gardening staff, going so far as to say that "mental health support and counseling" was suggested.
Reports of the king's controlling behavior have generated quite a social media response. Some didn't see it as a shock; one person wrote, "It is all faux surprise - everybody who watches the U.K. Royals even casually has known of this man's irritability, irascibility and phenomenal temper."
We know that King Charles has worked to slim down the monarchy, but we're not sure that losing gardeners was what he was going for. However, the king has long been rumored to have been on the more finicky side. King Charles' list of daily demands apparently includes having his shoelaces ironed.
Read the original article on The List.
