David Attenborough-narrated series focuses on everyday British wildlife

The BBC has ordered a second series of breakout natural history series Secret Garden.

Co-produced by A Real Bug’s Life indie Plimsoll Productions with The Open University, the title explores the often-hidden wildlife in Britain’s back gardens, with the five-part debut run following creatures such as otters, hedgehogs, badgers, dormice, foxes and pine martens.

It averaged 2.7m (26.9%) overnight viewers in 6pm and 7pm slots on BBC1 on Sundays in April and May, consolidating with 3.5m (30.1%), according to Barb data from overnights.tv. According to BBC figures which include all devices the show averaged 4.7m viewers. 

The title is narrated by David Attenborough and is understood to be part of a push by the BBC to spotlight UK-based wildlife stories, following the success of Silverback’s Attenborough series Wild Isles.

Plimsoll is also behind nature series including The Wild Ones for Apple TV, A Real Bug’s Life and history doc Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston for Nat Geo/Disney+.

The BBC declined to comment.