Buckfast Abbey gardens win RHS award

Buckfast Abbey has received an 'Outstanding' award for its gardens in the RHS It’s your Neighbourhood Awards.

The Abbey has a team of eight gardeners who work throughout the year to create and maintain the 35 acre gardens within the grounds of the Abbey (15 of these are open to the public). Parts of the gardens have been created by Charlotte and Andrew Rathbone from the Rathbone Partnership and they still work with the team at Buckfast, advising them on landscaping.

The gardens are partly modelled on medieval plans and in addition to the lawns, consist of a number of gardens including the Lavender Garden containing some 150 varieties of the spe-cies and the Sensory Garden, designed to stimulate the senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch.

Whilst the team weren’t competing against anyone for the award, they did have to meet some fairly tough criteria set by RHS. This included Community Participation where the Abbey needed to show that they involved the local community; Environmental Responsibility where they had to demonstrate conservation, recycling, composting and improving green space; and finally an overall Gardening Achievement, when the team had to show that they use good gardening practices as well as creativity and innovation.

Head Gardener Aaron Southgate said: "We’re thrilled that we have been awarded an outstanding for this award. It recognises the hard work that our team put into the gar-dens at the Abbey all year round.

"We wouldn’t be where we are without the support and input from the Rathbone Partnership and a big thank you needs to be said to them for their input in the overall design and development.”