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Sitting in an old barn, home to a plethora of birdlife, they discuss the climate crisis, the veg patch at Buckingham Palace and the art of hedgelaying – before the prince takes the poet on a tour of his wildflower meadow.

1. It took Prince Charles years to find a Welsh house to call home

Llwynywermod, in rural Carmarthenshire, is the Welsh home of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, which they bought 13 years ago. Prince Charles admits he was on the hunt for a Welsh residence for years. “It wasn’t through want of trying, but it was difficult to find the right place,” he says. “Finally we found this, which has been a godsend really.” Bringing it back to life, planting new trees and encouraging wildflowers and birdlife, has been a “little labour of love”.

Some of the trees I’ve planted are quite big… I keep thinking to myself, ‘did I actually do that?’

HRH Prince Charles

The prince visits his base in Wales whenever he can. “It is wonderful coming down here, and I love coming in the winter, when I can at a weekend,” he says. “I stamp about in the Brecon Beacons and explore, which is magic. And fight my way through large numbers of sheep all over the place.” He says it is “very special” because it’s more of a cottage and, with all the Welsh quilts he’s managed to collect, it’s “incredibly cosy.”

2. Connecting with the outside world is an “essential” part of the prince’s life

Prince Charles’s passion for nature has been with him as long as he can remember. “I’ve always loved the countryside; I’ve always adored being outside all the time,” he says. “Because I was staying in Scotland some of the time, and in Norfolk at other times, I loved going out and exploring.” And his interest in the natural world has only increased as he has become older. “For me, it’s an essential part of life, to have that connection with the world outside.”

“Just stopping and really looking and observing is another thing that matters to me a great deal,” he says. Even noticing the quality of the light on the landscape can be so “profoundly moving and special”.

3. He had a vegetable patch at Buckingham Palace as a child

Prince Charles has fond memories of “rushing about and exploring” the royal gardens as a child. And he started developing his green fingers at a young age. “My sister and I had a little vegetable patch in the back of a border somewhere,” says the Prince. “We had great fun trying to grow tomatoes rather unsuccessfully and things like that.” The Head Gardener at the Palace “was splendid”, he says, and helped them with their little garden.

He believes there’s nothing to beat eating produce that you’ve grown yourself. “This is another reason why I always feel it’s so important to try and find ways of encouraging children to grow vegetables and things at school.”

4. He thinks planting a tree is the most rewarding thing you can do

“There’s nothing more satisfactory and rewarding than planting a tree yourself,” says Prince Charles. “I’ve been at Highgrove for 41 years now, so some of the trees I’ve planted are quite big… I keep thinking to myself, ‘did I actually do that?’ Because while it’s growing so tall, I’m shrinking rather fast,” he laughs. “Slightly depressing!”

5. He’s been battling the loss of natural habitats since he was a teenager

We need to understand that we are a “part” of nature, not “apart from it”, says Prince Charles. A large problem over the last 200 years has been “the idea that we can somehow just exploit it, without paying any regard to putting anything back again in return,” he states. “And by doing that we’ve denuded so much, of the life and vigour.” We’ve lost 96% of all the wildflower-rich meadows in Britain, forests and wetlands have been destroyed, and we’ve lost soil fertility all around the world, he says. Since his teenage years he’s been battling against this loss of natural habitat.

Delphiniums – HRH's favourite

For me, the world would come to an end if the swallows, swifts and house martins didn’t come back.

HRH Prince Charles

There are ways to regenerate large amounts of biodiversity, he says. “It can be done but it has to be done now,” he urges. This is why he launched the Sustainable Markets Initiative 18 months ago, to bring together people from different sectors of the economy to address these issues and mobilise the necessary finance. “It’s just trying to put the mechanics together,” he says. “There’s suddenly increasing amounts of capital looking now for sustainable investments but there aren’t enough of them,” he says, “so we’ve been trying to find ways of building those opportunities and connecting all the dots up.”

6. Delphiniums are his favourite flower

“I’ve always had a passion for delphiniums. I don’t know what it is about them but they have an intensity of colour and form which is really remarkable, I think,” says the Prince. “They always feature in my mind as the central part of a cottage garden… Clumps of them.”

“The fun is to see how tall you can get them. We managed to get one or two to nine feet!” he says. “I love them as a really special flower.”

7. His “world would come to an end” if the swallows, swifts and house martins didn’t return

“There is something irresistible about a swift,” says the prince. “They are the most remarkable birds.” Windsor Castle provides a fantastic nesting environment for them, “so in the summer it is staggering when you’re there, these wonderful swifts swooping with that incredible cry they make. And the speed they go at. They never stop.”

He’s been lucky enough to observe them in their native Africa, “circling rapidly amongst the hooves of wildebeest”, and he’s also spotted them at sea, mid-migration, when he was in the Navy. “Sometimes you’d get rows of them sitting on the ship when they were exhausted,” he recalls.

He’s been having “great fun” trying to attract them at his home in Wales, by putting up boxes and playing a swift’s call. “I admire them and I love them; for me, the world would come to an end if the swallows, swifts and house martins didn’t come back.”

8. He is patron of the National Hedgelaying Society

“I lay hedges in the winter, which I love,” says the prince. “It’s a funny sort of rough art form you know.” He says there’s something “eminently satisfactory and satisfying” about the finished product, looking down and seeing all the pleached stumps, and putting the heatherings along the top. “That is something that I find gives me not only exercise but is a really satisfactory thing to do – and it does make such a difference to the countryside,” he says. He reveals he is even Patron of the National Hedgelaying Society.

9. He used to play the cello

The prince used to play the cello, which he loved, but it was abandoned when he joined the Navy, and he never managed to take it up again. “It wasn’t so easy to take a cello on a ship,” he jokes. He recalls how he played in the orchestra at Trinity College Cambridge and found it fun, despite playing “rather badly.” “Anyway, I tried. I was a very bad member of the cello section I can assure you!”

10. He has trees from The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding growing in his meadow

Prince Charles takes Simon for a walk through the grounds and wildflower meadows at Llwynywermod. He points out six field maple trees growing. “They were the ones that were at my eldest son’s wedding in Westminster Abbey. They were part of the decoration,” says the prince. “They’ve got a few and I’ve got these ones. They’ve done really well here.”

To find out more, listen to The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed: HRH Prince Charles