Certified Blue Peter royalty will call on kids to show their natural flair for art in a new project today.
The Duchess of Cambridge – who already has a rare gold badge – appears on the show to launch a contest to design a sculpture that will go in her Back To Nature garden.
The winning entry will be built and installed in Kate’s Chelsea Flower Show concept garden when it moves to the Royal Horticultural Society’s site in Wisley, Surrey, in September.
Kate, 37, appears in a short film on today’s episode, at 5.30pm on BBC1, and is awarded a green Blue Peter badge for her efforts to encourage families to get out into nature.
Talking of instilling a love of the outdoors in children George, five, Charlotte, four, and Louis, one, she says: “Rain or shine, they’re dragged outside. It’s great.
"It encourages creativity, confidence and even a short amount of time – 10 or 15 minutes – makes a huge difference to physical wellbeing but also to our mental wellbeing.”
Kate is also shown taking part in pond dipping, planting and team den building with presenter Lindsey Russell and local schoolchildren at Westminster City Council’s Paddington Recreation Ground.
The Duchess’s woodland wilderness garden at the Chelsea Flower Show last month featured a tree house, a rope swing, a den and a campfire. She took her brood to visit and they were snapped having fun there.
Kate – who looked stylish in London last night in a white gown at a gala dinner for Addiction Awareness Week – gained her gold badge after appearing on the show with husband William, 36, in 2017, in recognition of their work on children’s mental health.
She follows in the footsteps of Princess Anne, who was on the show in 1971 as part of the Blue Peter Royal Safari.
Valerie Singleton accompanied her to Kenya, which she visited as president of the Save the Children Fund. Anne also opened the Blue Peter garden in 2012 when the BBC headquarters moved to Salford.
