Every Royal Bride Has a Sprig of This 1 Flower in Her Bouquet

Spring is well and truly sprung! So what better way to celebrate than by taking a look at all of the royal family's favorite flowers. Which ones have a special meaning for Prince Harry? Which blooms does the queen have on her desk? And what was the secret meaning behind Kate's bridal bouquet? From blossom-drenched weddings to private palace gardens and poignant plantings to meaningful decades-long passion projects, we've rounded up all the royal flower inspiration you'll ever need.

Wedding Flowers: The Queen
Getty | Hulton Archive / Stringer

Wedding Flowers: The Queen

The bride's bouquet contained white orchids and, in keeping with royal tradition, a sprig of myrtle. Including myrtle in the wedding bouquet is a practice that was started by Queen Victoria and has been followed by every royal bride since. The cutting is even taken from a bush that was grown from the sprig in Queen Victoria's own bouquet. For the queen's wedding to Prince Philip, Westminster Abbey was decorated with white lilies, chrysanthemums, carnations, roses, camellia, and ivy — and for the reception at Buckingham Palace, the tables were set with vases of pink and white carnations.

Wedding Flowers: Kate Middleton
Getty | Pascal Le Segretain

Wedding Flowers: Kate Middleton

The theme of Kate and William's wedding was The Language of Flowers — a Victorian practice where different blooms were each given their own unique meaning so that coded nosegays could be exchanged between courting couples. The bride's small shield-shaped bouquet contained lily of the valley (symbolizing a return to happiness), hyacinths (constancy), and ivy (fidelity) as well as Sweet William in tribute to her groom. Meanwhile the four countries that make up the UK were all represented in the lace of her dress, with roses for England, thistles for Scotland, daffodils for Wales, and shamrocks for Northern Ireland.

Wedding Flowers: Kate Middleton and Prince William
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Wedding Flowers: Kate Middleton and Prince William

The interior of Westminster Abbey was designed to create a living space, with hornbeam and maple trees lining the aisle, and the surfaces and vases filled with white and cream seasonal spring flowers including blossom, rhododendrons, wisteria, euphorbias, lilac, and azaleas — most of which came from Windsor Castle gardens.

Wedding Flowers: Princess Diana
Getty | Fox Photos / Stringer

Wedding Flowers: Princess Diana

Diana's waterfall bouquet of gardenias, stephanotis, orchids, lily of the valley, roses, freesia, veronica, spider lilies, and ivy reportedly weighed two kilos, while the interior of St. Paul's was filled with 300 pots of hydrangeas, lilies, and campanulas.

Wedding Flowers: Sophie, Countess of Wessex
Getty | GERRY PENNY

Wedding Flowers: Sophie, Countess of Wessex

Sophie stuck with royal tradition for her big day and opted for an all-ivory bouquet that contained roses, calla lilies, stephanotis, lily of the valley, and freesia. The bride later had a portion of the bouquet preserved and framed for display in her drawing room.

Wedding Flowers: Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Getty | TOBY MELVILLE

Wedding Flowers: Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

The wedding of Charles and Camilla was low-key but beautiful, and the bride carried a simple posy of seasonal Spring flowers — lily of the valley with yellow, purple, and cream primroses.

Wedding Flowers: Zara Phillips
Getty | Mike Marsland

Wedding Flowers: Zara Phillips

The queen's granddaughter married in Edinburgh, Scotland, and she carried a bouquet of white calla lilies, silver senecio, lily of the valley, hydrangeas, and, in a nod to the Scottish location, alpine thistles. The bridesmaids carried smaller versions, accented with blue thistles, while the venue of Cannongate Kirk was filled with stargazer lilies and beech branches, and the outside was decorated with roses, carnations, stocks, hydrangea, eucalyptus, and more alpine thistles.

Royal Homes: Kensington Palace
Getty | DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS

Royal Homes: Kensington Palace

William and Harry chose to honour the 20th anniversary of their mother Princess Diana's passing with a garden at her former home — which of course is still their home now. The newly named White Garden replaces what used to be referred to as the Sunken Garden, and apart from poignantly abundant forget-me-nots is planted in all-white blooms. Spring planting includes tulips and narcissii, and in Summer there will be roses, cosmos, guara, and ornamental grasses.

Royal Homes: Buckingham Palace Private Gardens
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Royal Homes: Buckingham Palace Private Gardens

There are 42 acres of gardens around the back of the palace, including a rose garden, camomile lawn, wisteria-clad summerhouse, and wildflower meadow. A rare white helleborine orchid was also discovered in the grounds four years ago. The queen's bees feed from the flowers and produce honey, which is used in the palace.

Royal Homes: Inside Buckingham Palace
Getty | CARL COURT

Royal Homes: Inside Buckingham Palace

It has been revealed that every Monday when the queen returns from her weekend at Windsor Castle, she is welcomed back with a small posy of seasonal flowers that have been cut from the gardens for her desk. In the colder months, this includes honeysuckle, Winter jasmine, and blue-black berries.

Royal Homes: Buckingham Palace Public Gardens
Getty | Matthew Lloyd

Royal Homes: Buckingham Palace Public Gardens

In the Summer, there are red geraniums, spider plants, salvias, and weeping figs, and in the Winter, 50,000 yellow wallflowers and red tulips.

Royal Homes: Windsor Castle
Getty | Lisa Sheridan / Stringer

Royal Homes: Windsor Castle

The castle grounds are filled with lush corners, including the Savill Garden and the Valley Gardens. The young Princess Elizabeth was photographed in front of a syringa tree there in 1941.

Royal homes: Balmoral Castle
Getty | Chris Jackson

Royal homes: Balmoral Castle

In the Scottish Highlands, the landscape is all about the purple-white heather, which runs rampant all over the estate. The royal tartan is even taken from the color of the heather, and when Princess Anne married for the second time it was in Scotland, and she carried a modest posy of Balmoral heather.

Royal Homes: Highgrove House
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Royal Homes: Highgrove House

The grounds of Highgrove House in Gloucestershire are Prince Charles's passion project, and he has been working on them for over 35 years. He intended the interlinked, eclectically designed and organic gardens to "feed the soul, warm the heart, and delight the eye," and they are open for the public to explore. The house itself is surrounded by wisteria, honeysuckle, jasmine, holboellia, and lilies, while the Cottage Garden is split in two. The new section is all yellow, pink, and blue, inspired by Tibetan silks, and the old part is quintessentially English and includes crocuses, tulips, and the prince's favorite flowers, delphiniums. The Thyme Walk features 20 different kinds of thyme, as well as primroses, and ends in a lily pond. One of the most notable flowers in the grounds is the blood red Highgrove Rose, which Charles chose specifically to be grown there.

Royal Homes: Highgrove House Wildflower Meadow
Getty | Tim Graham / Contributor

Royal Homes: Highgrove House Wildflower Meadow

The prince is passionate about building up wildflower meadows across the UK, since they have steeply declined in number since the Second World War. He was responsible for the planting of a vast wildflower meadow at Highgrove 35 years ago, where blooms include ox-eye daisies, buttercups, dandelions, poppies, camassia, ragged robin, yellow rattle, lent lilies, and ice follies.

Royal Homes: Highgrove House Kitchen Garden
Getty | Tim Graham / Contributor

Royal Homes: Highgrove House Kitchen Garden

The kitchen garden mainly provides fruit and vegetables to be used for meals but also features the prince's favorite delphiniums.

Getting Personal: Prince Harry
Getty | Chris Jackson

Getting Personal: Prince Harry

Prince Harry seems to have inherited his father's love of expressing himself with plants and flowers. He set up the charity Sentebale to help children affected by HIV/AIDS in the African nation of Lesotho and named it in memory of his mother after the Lesotho word for forget-me-not. The charity has twice exhibited a garden at the annual RHS Chelsea Flower show, and Harry has direct input into the planting. The first year the garden was full of forget-me-nots, and last year's Hope in Vulnerability garden had a warm color scheme of orange African poppies, kniphofias, aloes, and grasses to represent the burnt reddish landscape of Africa.

Getting Personal: William and Kate
Getty | Pool

Getting Personal: William and Kate

When William and Kate visited Singapore for the first time, their very first engagement was to visit the Botanical Gardens, where an orchid had been named after them. They also viewed an orchid, which had been named after William's mother, Princess Diana.

Getting Personal: Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
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Getting Personal: Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

The duchess has chosen to be patron of a charity called Floral Angels, which takes donations of fresh flowers from weddings and corporate events and redistributes them to assorted care homes, hospices, and women's refuges.

Getting Personal: Kate and Charlotte
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Getting Personal: Kate and Charlotte

Kate and Charlotte were equally taken with a bouquet the duchess received when they departed Canada last year. Kate has never divulged her favourite flower, but she is a fan of the fragrance White Gardenia Petals by Illuminum — she wore it on her wedding day.

Getting Personal: Princess Diana
Getty | Tim Graham / Contributor

Getting Personal: Princess Diana

The princess's favorite flowers were white roses and waterlilies — both of which are planted extensively at her final resting place of Althorp.

Getting Personal: The Queen
Getty | ADRIAN DENNIS

Getting Personal: The Queen

Her Majesty always remains tight-lipped about her likes and dislikes, but last year, celebrated gardner and royal favorite Alan Titchmarsh revealed after making a TV program about the gardens at Buckingham Palace: "She loves what we would call English cottage garden flowers — unostentatious flowers, not things that are too exotic."

It's been said the queen's favorites are carnations, and not only did she have them at her wedding, but Prince Philip presented her with a bouquet of them after she gave birth to Prince Charles.