Buckland Abbey is on the far west of Dartmoor and spring is late this year. It isn’t a garden with herbaceous border, more formal and functional elegance and sweeping grounds. There is an Elizabethan garden and although it’s box hedges have been damaged by blight in recent years, it has been replanted. The National trust have been working to establish a flowery mead since 2001 and its wild flowers attract butterflies and moths. Each September the mead is cut and to maintain the low nutrients in the soil that grassland needs the cuttings are rmeoved. In day gone by these cutting would have been animal fodder and also strewn around the floor in the house for its sweet fragrance.
A quiet spot
Cushion bushes
The Elizabethan garden
Spring is trying its best
Secret steps
A place for quiet contemplation
The dormant flowery mead
Lucid Gypsy 
This is a lovely blog. I am so glad I found it. I am just starting but while I am very interested in your subject matter at the moment I am focused on the very impressive way you lay out your images. How do you do that.
You images fit together so well rather like a stain glass window and are so appealing.
Hello and welcome to the blogging world! If you upload images to your site they are in a media gallery , from there you can choose to create a gallery to insert into your post – easy I promise!
I will have a go. Many thanks. It is fun writing to people on the other side of the world. I feel like Alice when she went down the rabbit hole.
Lovely photos and I enjoyed seeing the blue sky. Rain today unfortunately.
Yes here too, it’s really annoying!
Such beautiful gardens Gilly and your photographed it so well! Great shots hon and thanks for sharing. 🙂 *hugs*
Thank you my dear 🙂
You are very welcome hon. 🙂 *hugs*
i see an australian callistemon (bottlebrush) among your shots, the one with knobbly seed cases along the stems …and i have never heard of a flowery mead, it sounds fascinating and i am sure it would be really pretty with its wildflowers … a lovely rambling garden altogether 🙂
I wondered if it was a bottlebrush but without the flowers . . . and also it was huge and I’ve never seen one more thatn about a metre high, it must be amazing in bloom then. A mead is just their word for a meadow but yes very lovely 🙂
This time last year our cherry tree was in full blossom. Now, there is hardly a hint. Though I have some some tree that look like they are about to burst into blossomed glory. On the other hand, spring was early last year and the bluebells were over in a trice. I am anticipating a nice bluebell walk in early May.
Me too! last year I went too early and too late, must try harder!
Attractive and inviting gardens. Thanks for sharing, Gilly. I did not know about setting up a gallery. I must look into that. Lovely photos.
It’s never too early for a garden so beautiful.
The pictures are beautiful. I hope to some day be able to visit these places you are posting. Thank you so much, I really enjoy them.
and I hope you do too!
Lovely photos!
I think the plants and trees are confused with our weather changes being so drastic this year. Has it been like that where you are? I have trees that would normally have flowers sill dormant.
I wanted to tell that little Spring plant that’s trying … Yes, you can. Yes, you can. lolol
Oh well, eventually beautiful greens and colorful flowers will start to appear. Great shots, Gilly.
What a beautiful place, Gilly. I love the cushion bushes and the secret steps. 🙂