What will the Bridgerton Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show look like?

Bridgerton is coming to Chelsea this month, as Netflix makes its debut at the flower show, with a garden themed around its popular TV show. First time Chelsea designer Holly Johnston has created a garden based on the personal journey of the show’s main character, Penelope Featherington. The Bridgerton Garden is part of the Sanctuary Gardens area at the show.

The new season of Bridgerton begins on May 16, a week before the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which runs from 21-25 May. The garden has been designed to reflect the story of Penelope Featherington, who in public is a wallflower-like character, but behind the scenes the author of an infamous gossip column. The new series sees her developing in confidence, and the garden will show both her secretive side and her colourful character.

The garden has three distinct areas – at the entrance are two silver birches and an ornate moon gate. “It is Chinese by origin,” garden designer Holly Johnston told us, “but it was adopted by British gardens in the 19th century. You step through that and it’s meant to be almost a portal moment, a stepping into another world.”

On the other side of the moongate is a sunken seating area, surrounded by a ring of dwarf field elms, Ulmus minor var. suberosa, to create a sense of seclusion. In the centre of this area is a three-tiered stone fountain. In the third area, at the back of the garden, is a hand carved wall fountain surrounded by planting.

This area, according to the designer Holly Johnston, is where people should feel a change, demonstrated through the planting.

“When you’re walking through the garden, through all three areas, on the right hand side