Award-Winning Gardeners Share the Joy of Opening Their Precious Green Spaces

“It’s precious to open our garden.”

BBC

The 2026 BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair has spotlighted a new wave of creative gardening, with award-winning designers emphasizing the emotional and practical value of transforming even the smallest outdoor spaces. While the event’s focus is firmly on horticulture, its themes—accessibility, community, and the transformative power of nature—have resonated with broader cultural conversations, including those in film and pop culture, where spaces like the fictional Derry sewers in It (2017) serve as both settings and metaphors for hidden beauty and terror.

The fair, held in May 2026, showcased innovative designs for modern urban gardens, including those in limited spaces. Designers highlighted the importance of accessibility, noting that gardening can be a form of therapy and a way to connect with nature regardless of living conditions. The event’s emphasis on “opening our garden”—whether literal or metaphorical—aligns with recent trends in storytelling, where confined or overlooked spaces become central to narratives of discovery and resilience.

For entertainment audiences, the connection between gardening and storytelling is particularly striking. The 2017 horror film It, directed by Andy Muschietti and based on Stephen King’s novel, used the claustrophobic sewer system of Derry as a character in its own right. The film’s success—grossing over $700 million worldwide—demonstrated how confined, often neglected spaces can become rich backdrops for both terror and emotional depth. Similarly, the BBC’s fair underscores how even the most constrained environments can be reimagined through creativity and care.

While the primary focus of the fair remains horticultural, its broader cultural implications—particularly in how spaces are perceived and utilized—offer a fascinating parallel to the ways film and television often explore the intersection of environment and human experience. For instance, the fair’s emphasis on “small space gardening” mirrors the narrative techniques used in It, where the sewers, though dark and menacing, become a site of both horror and revelation for the Losers’ Club.

Designers at the fair also discussed the therapeutic benefits of gardening, a theme that resonates with the emotional journeys of characters in films like It. The act of cultivating a garden—whether in a sprawling yard or a tiny urban plot—can be a metaphor for personal growth, much like the characters’ confrontations with their deepest fears in Derry. This duality of beauty and danger in confined spaces is a recurring motif in both gardening and horror storytelling.

As the fair concludes, its legacy extends beyond the immediate world of horticulture. It serves as a reminder that creativity thrives in unexpected places, whether in a garden bed or the pages of a novel—or the sewers of a small Maine town. For audiences who engage with both gardening and pop culture, the message is clear: the spaces we often overlook can become the most meaningful parts of our lives.

For those interested in exploring how storytelling and gardening intersect, the fair’s designs offer a tangible example of how even the most constrained environments can be transformed into something extraordinary. Whether through the lens of a horror film or the hands of a dedicated gardener, the power of space—both literal and metaphorical—remains a compelling theme in modern culture.