Five London Royal Parks trees to see this autumn
London’s autumn colours could arrive earlier than usual this year, with the Royal Parks recommending visits. Five trees, from the golden ginkgo in Bushy Park to the Japanese maple beside a pond in Greenwich Park, offer visitors a chance to see the season changing across the capital.
The Royal Parks has identified locations where visitors can enjoy autumn foliage, with the timing and intensity of the colours varying between species. The warmer summer may also affect the display, making some reds less vivid while bringing forward the seasonal changes.
In St James’s Park, London plane trees begin developing a golden glow around mid-September. The trees frame the view of Buckingham Palace from Blue Bridge, providing a familiar London landmark against the changing leaves. The Royal Parks notes that climate change appears to be affecting when plane trees change colour and shed their leaves.
Greenwich Park offers a different display. A Japanese maple beside the Flower Garden Pond produces reflections of red and yellow foliage on the water, while further specimens can be found near the Bower Avenue entrance to the Flower Garden and beside the cricket pitch perimeter path. This year, the reds may be less intense after the summer heat, but yellow and bronze shades should still provide seasonal colour.
In The Regent’s Park, tulip trees line the Avenue Gardens. Their flowers attract pollinators in late spring and early summer, while their leaves turn yellow and orange during September and October.
Brompton Cemetery provides another setting for autumn colour, with weeping silver lime trees whose drooping branches and silvery-backed leaves give them a distinctive appearance. Their form has a historical association with Victorian mourning traditions. The Royal Parks suggests they may have been planted to mark Queen Victoria’s silver jubilee in 1862, although the monarch did not officially celebrate the anniversary while in mourning for Prince Albert.
For a later-season visit, Bushy Park’s Woodland Gardens offer golden ginkgo leaves from around the end of September. Often described as a living fossil, the ginkgo belongs to an ancient plant lineage dating back more than 200 million years.
Together, these locations provide a reason to explore London’s green spaces as autumn progresses, while offering a closer look at the trees that support wildlife, store carbon, and help sustain the urban environment.
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