The Duke of Edinburgh astonished gardeners at the Chelsea Flower Show when he turned his back and stalked off after a designer politely corrected him on the identity of a palm.

“I didn’t want a bloody lecture,” Prince Philip was heard to mutter after being told he had mistaken the name of a plant.

Jamie Durie, the designer of the Fleming’s Nurseries Australian Garden at the show, explained later that he had been showing the Duke around the showpiece when he put his royal visitor right. “It was my first experience of Prince Philip. He said to me, ‘I do like your tree fern’. I said, ‘Actually, it’s not a tree fern, it’s a member of the Cycad family. It’s a Macrozamia moorei’. With that, he walked off. I was quite shocked – I so didn’t mean to offend him.

“He said, ‘I didn’t come here to get a lesson’, under his breath as he walked away – one of the boys heard him say that. I thought, ‘Well, you did ask.’

“I was trying to be as courteous as I could and give him the right information. He just walked away. Maybe he was a bit tired.”

Mr Durie is a celebrity television gardener in Australia, having previously worked as a stripper with a group called ManPower.

Adam Savage, one of the gardeners who helped construct the garden, which was yesterday awarded a Royal Horticultural Society gold medal, said that he’d heard the Duke mutter, perhaps jokingly, to an aide: “I didn’t want a bloody lecture.”

The plant, a type of palm found in northern Queensland, is often mistaken for date palms, although it is more closely related to conifers.

The Australian team was ecstatic when they learnt that their show garden had won gold. The exuberant whoops and champagne-fuelled celebrations that ensued contrasted with the restrained, “very British” reactions of other gold medallists.

Mr Durie’s meeting with the Queen during the royal visit to the flower show on Monday afternoon was less stressful than the designer’s encounter with her husband. He gave her an Australian tree, Brachychiton rupestris, and a painting.

“I can’t believe gardening has enabled us to meet the Queen. It’s fantastic,” Mr Durie said. “She was really pleasant. I think she was quite taken with the garden. She was so pleasant – I couldn’t believe how generous she was with her time and how positive she was. It was an honour.

“We gave her a tree, and there was a gentleman behind her rolling his eyes – I think he was wondering how he was going to get it all home.”

Explore Gardens

• Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

• Chelsea Flower Show

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