“It is all coming out just in time for Easter this year, like an enormous bouquet,” says Rosemary Howell, who has lived and gardened at Lukesland for more than 40 years.
“Primroses and other wild flowers are out in abundance in lots of places where we haven’t seen them before and some of our rare shrubs, like michelia doltsopa, have put on the best show we have ever seen.”
Lukesland has 24-acres of woodland garden by a tumbling Dartmoor stream and a wonderful collection of rhododendrons, camellias, magnolias and other acid-loving shrubs, some dating from Victorian times.
The gardens are part of the National Gardens Scheme and are open on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday from 11am until 5pm and then on Sundays, Wednesdays and bank holidays through to Sunday, June 11.
The Howell family serve up home-made soup and cakes in the Victorian billiard room and there are plants, locally-made preserves and hand-turned wooden bowls for sale.
Dogs are welcome on a lead and there is a nature trail for children, with free entry for under 16s.
On Easter Eve, there will also be a chance to enjoy Easter flowers at St Petroc’s Church, Harford, about a mile on from Lukesland.
This is a pretty 15th century moorland church, which the MacAndrews, the Victorian owners of Lukesland, did much to restore in the late 19th century.
Every year, members of the small Harford community decorate the church for Easter in true rural fashion and this year, to raise funds for church redecoration, they are serving cream teas to visitors who come to see the Easter display on Saturday, April 15 between 2pm and 5pm.
For details of Lukesland garden’s opening times, or the cream teas at St Petroc’s Church, telephone 01752 691749, visit www.lukesland.co.uk or search for “Lukesland” on Facebook.