Back To Top

Give Your Garden a Bridgerton Makeover This Spring – Without the Regency Budget

Inspired by the lavish greens of Bridgerton, we break down the best budget-friendly flowers and fillers to achieve a sophisticated English garden look.

Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha as Benedict and Sophie in The Waltz, Bridgerton Season 4
(Image credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix)

There are many shows that have an influence on the style of gardens, and Bridgerton is certainly one of them. While the lavish costumes, love stories, and pure decadence of the series are recognizable right away, the show is also known for something else: outdoor scenes. The gardens “The Ton” are seen walking through feel like living watercolor paintings, as if you’ve just stepped into a Monet artwork.

An outdoor flower display advertising Bridgerton

(Image credit: Bryan Bedder / Stringer / Getty Images)

Soft pastels, billowing blooms, and carefully coordinated color palettes fill your screen the second you turn on the show, and it has left me dreaming of my own spring garden to come. You don’t need a sprawling English estate or a Regency-era budget to recreate this look in your own yard.

To achieve the same look (hopefully without the whispered scandals), you just need to focus on color families, affordable plant substitutions, and arranging. If you complete these simple steps, you can easily bring a touch of the Bridgerton aesthetic to your yard, patio, or even a container garden.

Get the Look

Start With a Soft, Cohesive Color Palette

So, what is really at the heart of the Bridgerton garden look? Lady Whistledown would probably say color coordination, and she would be right. Rather than mixing every shade under the sun, the show’s gardens tend to group flowers into harmonious hues like blush pinks, lavender purples, buttery yellows, powdery blues, and creamy whites.

To recreate this effect, choose one or two main color families and build around them. For example, a pastel pink and purple palette feels quintessentially Regency, while soft blues and whites bring a more airy, whimsical vibe. By limiting your garden’s color palette, you make it feel like it has purpose rather than everything being thrown there all willy nilly.

If you’re planting in beds, group plants in similar color tones together instead of scattering them all over the place. If you’re using containers, you have it a lot easier, and you can simply stick with variations of the same color.

View of garden with tree and bed of purple flowers, cottage in background.

(Image credit: Mint Images/Getty Images)

Choose Affordable, Look-Alike Plants

Many of the flower species that evoke a classic English garden setting, like roses, delphiniums, and foxgloves can be quite pricey or just plain finicky. Fortunately, for those of us not part of the Bridgerton household, there are plenty of budget-friendly alternatives that deliver the same impact.

Rather than using heirloom roses, try easy-care shrub roses or even pale pink zinnias for a similar fullness. Swap out delphiniums for the tall larkspur variety or snapdragons, which give some vertical interest without the same maintenance requirements. For lavender tones, catmint and salvias provide an airy feel that fits in perfectly with the Bridgerton universe.

Grow Your Own

These English lavender seeds from Amazon have a lovely fragrance that will surely transport you straight into the show. Don't want to start from seed? Get this live lavender plant from Nature Hills.

Your goal shouldn’t necessarily be to replicate the exact species of flowers but to echo the shape, height, color, and layered flowing look of Regency gardens.

Arrange With Height and Movement in Mind

snapdragon flowers in mixed colors

(Image credit: Baona / Shutterstock)

A super important feature of achieving the Bridgerton garden look is how plants are arranged.

Taller plants should rise at the back of beds or the center of containers, while softer, mounding plants should spill outward. When you're planting, think in terms of tiers. Place your taller flowers, such as snapdragons or foxglove alternatives, behind medium-height flowers like cosmos or phlox. Use trailing plants like alyssum or creeping thyme near the edges to soften your borders or pathways.

What you most want to avoid are rigid lines that will make your garden look stiff and overly formal. Allow plants to intermingle slightly to get a natural feel in your garden that will make it look like it’s been growing for several years.

To add some height to your Bridgerton-inspired garden, try training some garden roses using a climbing obelisk like this one from Amazon that comes in a pack of 2.

basket of lavender being harvested from garden

(Image credit: Freya Photographer / Shutterstock)

Don’t Forget Foliage and Fillers

They don't have supporting actor awards for nothing. While flowers may be the star, they still require foliage to act as a major supporting role to get the Bridgerton garden look. Soft green leaves make pastel flowers stand out and keep the garden from looking overly cutesy or too sweet (after all, this is an English garden aesthetic we’re talking about, not a rom-com).

Incorporate plants like ferns, lamb’s ear, or dusty miller to add some texture and contrast. These may be parts of the garden that appear to stay in the background, but they give the colors a more refined feel, which is always important when you're planting a Regency-inspired space.

lamb's ear plants with silver fuzzy leaves

(Image credit: Alina Bratosin / Shutterstock)

Adapt the Look for Any Space

You certainly don’t need a massive yard or even a traditional garden to give this look a go. This aesthetic translates beautifully to balconies, patios or even window boxes. If you’re planting in a smaller space, use containers to group plants by color family and then put them closer together to achieve that fuller effect.

With some thoughtful color planning and strategic plant choices, you can create a garden that feels straight out of “The Ton” – no tiara required.

Sarah Veldman
Guest Contributor

Sarah is a lifestyle and entertainment writer with over a decade of experience covering everything from celebrity news to home and style trends. Her work has appeared in outlets including Bustle, The Everygirl, Hello Giggles, and Woman’s Day. When she’s not writing about the latest viral moment, she’s cultivating her love of gardening and bringing a storyteller’s eye to all things green and growing.