RHS ready to cultivate new audience with huge Salford garden

Bridgewater, billed as ‘Europe’s biggest gardening project’, is to finally open after Covid delays

The Royal Horticultural Society billed it as “Europe’s biggest gardening project”, a 154-acre garden in one of the most deprived local authorities in England that was going to open up a new audience for one of the country’s most middle-class organisations.

RHS Bridgewater in Salford was supposed to open last summer, but Covid had other ideas. It will finally open to the public on Tuesday, with the curator, Marcus Chilton-Jones, saying the pandemic was a “blessing in disguise” because it gave the RHS an extra 10 months to get the gardens established.