Client: Historic Royal Palaces.  Landscape Architecture: Grant Associates.  Planting Design and Horticulture: Nigel Dunnett.  Installation and maintenance: Landform UK.  Opening: 2022

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The Tower of London Superbloom installation celebrated the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.  20 million carefully selected seeds were sown in the Tower’s famous moat, creating a vibrant sea of flowers which continuously evolved from June to September, changing colours and patterns throughout the summer, when the moat was opened to the public.  The Superbloom was the first stage and catalyst for a permanent transformation of the famous moat into a new natural landscape in the heart of the City of London.

 

The vast 14,000 square metre moat was previously the setting for two major commemorations of the Centenary of the First World War: the 2014 ‘Poppies’ and 2018 ‘Flames’ installations.  However, the space has had many uses in its long history.   It has housed a medieval orchard, a grazing ground for Victorian livestock, and even allotments during the Second World War. In 1977, to mark HM The Queen’s Silver Jubilee, the moat provided a fitting location for a garden display.  In 2022, for the first time, a space built in the 13th century to keep people out of the Tower, welcomed visitors in to explore and see the spectacle of the ‘Superbloom’ close up.