Immersive but also reassuring and calming lighting was central to the success of designer Arit Anderson’s award-winning ‘A Garden for Every Parkinson’s Journey’ at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show
By Eleni Shiarlis
the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show in May is the world’s most celebrated horticultural event, bringing together leading designers, artists, and growers from across the world.
It was therefore a massive honour to be commissioned by the award-winning garden designer and broadcaster Arit Anderson to create the lighting design for her stunning show garden at this year’s show.
In fact, I am very pleased to say that Arit’s garden, ‘Parkinson’s UK – A Garden for Every Parkinson’s Journey’, even won this year’s BBC/RHS People Choice Award.
Following the show, the garden has been relocated to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, a recognised UK Parkinson’s Centre of Excellence, where it will continue as a lasting therapeutic landscape.
Supported by Project Giving Back, the garden was created for the charity Parkinson’s UK, which has described it as symbolising ‘the journey of living with Parkinson’s: the moments of adaptation, challenge, hope and connection’.
It is, in many ways, much more than just a garden. It is a space that tells the changing story of this condition through planting, pathways, handrails, textures and seating.
Moreover, after dark (which I’ll return to in more detail shortly), the garden transforms into an immersive and therapeutic night-time space to highlight insomnia – a common symptom experienced by those living with Parkinson’s.
SCULPTURAL ‘HAND-RILL’
The garden was conceived by Arit as a sanctuary to support and uplift those living with Parkinson’s. A wide, accessible pathway therefore winds through contrasting planting zones, unified by a sculptural ‘hand-rill’ that functions as both a flowing water feature and tactile guide.
The movement and sound of water are designed to provide sensory cues that can assist with ‘freezing’, again a common symptom of Parkinson’s The planting scheme is divided into three distinct zones: ‘uplift and energise’, ‘calm and restful’, and ‘night-time’.
Each is carefully curated to reflect different sensory and emotional experiences associated with the condition. For example, bright, jewel-toned planting in the energising zone offers visual stimulation while incorporating scentless varieties to reflect the loss of smell often experienced in the early stages of Parkinson’s.
In ‘calm and restful’, a woodland-inspired zone introduces muted tones and layered textures to create a calming, restorative environment.
The night-time garden, meanwhile, features a palette of greens and whites, chosen for their visibility in low light and their ability to attract pollinators, again offering a tranquil setting for those affected by insomnia.
IMMERSIVE AND ATMOSPHERIC LANDSCAPE
After dark, as touched on earlier, the lighting design then transforms the garden into an immersive and atmospheric landscape.
The lighting strategy was carefully developed to create a calm and reassuring night-time environment for people living with Parkinson’s.
To that end, low-level, concealed illumination minimises glare and harsh contrast, supporting balance, spatial awareness, and confidence in movement, while preserving the natural darkness of the garden.
Lighting the key architectural elements (designed by design and fabrication company Millimetre) including illuminating the flowing hand-rill, the benches, and night-time canopy – all these are central to the lighting strategy for the garden.
Together, in fact, they form the guiding framework of the garden, with gentle illumination helping to define routes, reveal places to pause, and support intuitive wayfinding.
Carefully lit planting extends the garden’s interest into the evening, creating a calming sensory landscape particularly valuable for those experiencing insomnia.
The lighting scheme uses discreet, low-level LED luminaires integrated within the garden’s structures and planting. Warm, controlled illumination minimises glare and upward spill, creating visual comfort while allowing texture, movement, and materiality to emerge subtly after dark.
ROLE OF COLOUR TEMPERATURE
Colour temperature was another key consideration throughout the design. Working closely with Chris Hudson of Hudson Lighting, whose 2200K and 2300K spike luminaires illuminated the planting, I specified matching 2300K concealed linear lighting from PHOS to create a consistent and comfortable night-time environment across the garden.
Rather than the more typical 2700K or 3000K used in many landscape lighting schemes, this ultra-warm approach demonstrated how thoughtful lighting design can benefit both people and wildlife.
Furthermore, by combining downward-directed illumination with warmer colour temperatures, the scheme reduced skyglow, light trespass and blue spectrum pollution, helping to minimise disruption to nocturnal wildlife, including migratory birds and insects.
CALM AND REASSURING NIGHT-TIME ENVIRONMENT
In summary, lighting this garden has been about creating a calm and reassuring night-time environment for people living with Parkinson’s.
By softly illuminating the hand-rill, benches and canopy, the structures become ‘gentle guides’ through the space, helping visitors feel oriented, safe and able to pause.
For me, the use of warmer temperatures showed how striking this sort of balance need not compromise functionality. Visitors were still able to move safely through the space while experiencing a more natural, less disruptive evening environment.
In conclusion, the lighting for Arit’s garden was – and continues to be – deliberately subtle and carefully controlled, preserving the natural darkness of the garden while allowing the planting to quietly come alive after dark.
Eleni Shiarlis is a lighting designer based in Hove
This is an abridged version of the article that appears in the September edition of Lighting Journal. To read the full article, simply click on the page-turner to your right.
Photograph by Stephen Studd
