Last sunny days of the year

Kensington Gardens is effectively a curated outdoor arboretum, with more than 3,000 trees ranging from towering London planes to veteran sweet chestnuts that have stood here for around two centuries. The grand avenues are dominated by London planes, lime and chestnut trees, whose tall canopies create that “cathedral” effect of green vaults overhead while also helping scrub pollution from the city air. Scattered among them are oaks, hornbeams, rowans and more exotic species such as tulip trees, mulberries and Indian bean trees, so that a short walk can take you past both native woodland species and trees originally imported from North America or Asia. Many older trees have deeply furrowed bark and hollowing trunks that now function as miniature high‑rise systems for bats, fungi, beetles and nesting birds like woodpeckers, treecreepers and even little owls, making this very formal royal landscape an important pocket of urban biodiversity.