I love long walks, and luckily, London has a lot of beautiful green spaces for a walk. Recently, I posted a list of unique places for a long walk in London. Today, I want to share with you a list of my favourite public gardens in London – places where you can sit down and relax, enjoying a rainbow of colourful flowers. If you want to learn where to find the most spectacular flower beds, rose bushes, beautiful wisteria or peaceful, secluded wildflower gardens, keep reading – this post is for you.
Regent’s Park: Queen Mary’s Rose Garden, Queen Elizabeth II garden, flower beds along the park alleys
I’m going to start with my parents’ favourite place in London: Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park. This spectacular garden is filled with thousands of roses from late spring and into the summer months. Colourful and fragrant, these roses are a pleasure to the eye and the nose.
Just a stone’s throw away, also in Regent’s Park, there’s the newly opened Queen Elizabeth II Garden. I actually had a chance to visit it on April 27th 2026, the day it opened to the public! It’s more of a wildflower type of garden. A little empty for now, but I’m sure it will flourish into a beautiful space in the coming months.
Generally speaking, Regent’s Park is also full of colourful flower beds along the park’s footpaths. Being one of the Royal Parks, it’s looked after by a team of gardeners. The displays in flower beds change seasonally, and they’re always impressive.
Old English garden in Battersea Park
Next, let me take you to the Old English garden in Battersea Park. If you like wisteria, you need to visit this place in April. Otherwise, the Old English garden is a quiet space with a small fountain, some flower beds, and benches. It’s a fantastic place to sit down and relax.
Golders Hill Park – Pergola, Walled Garden
Golders Hill Park, located in north London, has several gardens. The most popular of them is the Pergola – a large garden with arcade walks, flower beds and wisteria. This unique place can be great for a relaxing stroll, but it gets busy in peak times. It’s also a popular spot for influencer-wannabes, so brace yourselves for people with large tripods and several bags of outfits and props blocking the path. I also recommend checking opening times online before you visit. I love the Golders Hill Pergola, but I rarely go there because it’s a long commute for me. I decided to visit it on my day off at the end of April, only to see the whole area fenced off for a couple of weeks for filming!
Also in Golders Hill Park, you’ll find a Walled Garden with neat flower beds and a small duck pond. It’s really pretty and colourful in the spring!
Kensington Gardens – Sunken Garden, Italian Gardens, alley near Prince Albert monument
Kensington Gardens, adjacent to Hyde Park, have a few floral areas – some of the best in central London!
First of all, there are the Sunken Gardens next to Kensington Palace. You can’t enter the garden itself, but there’s a path around it. It’s a tranquil place, built in memory of Princess Diana. There’s a shallow pond and colourful flower beds around it. So pretty and elegant!
On the other end of Kensington Gardens, there are the majestic Italian Gardens – a popular, quite touristy spot with four elegant fountains and some flower beds. If you visit the Italian Gardens, look for herons wading in the fountains. I’ve never seen them catch anything (are there even fish in the fountains?) but there’s usually one standing in the water.
Finally, Kensington Gardens are home to the spectacular Prince Albert monument. Behind it, there’s a long alley with flower beds on both sides. You can often see squirrels and green parakeets in that area.
Greenwich Park – Rose Garden, Flower Garden
Greenwich Park is best known for the Meridian Line and the Royal Observatory, as well as the panoramic views from the hill. But not everyone knows that there are several flower gardens in Greenwich Park too!
Let’s start with the section officially named the Flower Garden, located in the south-east corner of the park. You’ll find some flower beds there, and a recently revamped pond with a fountain. It’s a nice place, but frankly, the flowers are lacking!
If you enjoy flowering plants, you’re better off checking out the Rose Garden on the west side of Greenwich Park, near the Ranger’s House. There are loads of flower beds there, with various kinds of roses and wildflowers. It seems like not many people know of that garden – it’s usually pretty quiet, compared to the rest of the park. I highly recommend visiting it!
Additionally, there are two smaller gardens in Greenwich Park: a herb garden in the north-west corner of the park, and the Queen’s Orchard tucked away in the north-east corner. I only discovered the latter this year!
Olympic Park, Stratford
Next, let me take you to my local park – the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. Connected with Hackney Marshes and then Walthamstow Wetlands farther north, it’s a long stretch of green spaces. The section in Stratford, near London Stadium, has some colourful flower beds lining the bank of River Lea. The flowers change seasonally, from an ocean of yellow daffodils in the winter to varied exotic plants and classic wildflowers in the spring and summer. There’s a lot of benches overlooking the river, making it a great spot to sit down and relax.
Central London – Thames north bank – Victoria Embankment Gardens, Temple Gardens
Central London, specifically the area near the north bank of the Thames, also has some floral gardens. Look for them around Westminster/Waterloo, on the north bank of the river. There are a few small gardens, including Victoria Embankment Gardens and Temple Gardens. Victoria Embankment Gardens (Whitehall section specifically) have some spectacular flower beds!
Holland Park – Japanese Garden, Dutch Garden
Last – but by no means least – on my list is Holland Park, located in a posh area of London. There are actually a few gardens in Holland Park! As the name of the park suggests, you can find a Dutch garden there, with neat flower beds with seasonal flowers. But the most popular area of Holland Park is actually the Japanese garden, with a path around a pond with koi fish. The Japanese garden is particularly pretty early in the spring, when the cherry trees are covered in pink flowers, and in the autumn, when the trees and bushes turn red and gold.
There are resident peacocks in Holland Park, and if you’re lucky, you may see them present their stunning tails.
Final thoughts
I hope my list of my favourite gardens in London inspires you for your next day trip! These gardens are great choices for a long walk – particularly in the spring, when the flowers are in bloom. London may be one of the largest and most populated cities in Europe, but it’s also full of green spaces, in which you can relax and reconnect with nature. Let me know if you have other favourite gardens in London that didn’t make this list – there are plenty of parks in London, it’s impossible to list them all!
Also see:
Alphe's Corner 