Situated only 1,400 yards from the famous Spekes Mill Mouth Coastal Waterfall, the garden at Docton Mill was created in 1980 around the existing river, waterways, leats and ponds.

From February to May narcissi abound including Mount Hood, Barrett Browning, Semper Avanti and February Gold, while the wild undergrowth of ferns, bluebells, campion, wild garlic and violets are left intact.

Great oaks still dominate much of the prominent hillside and in summer the riverbanks billow with native ferns and wild flowers. A wet bank - home to native stellaria and bog pimpernel - just above the mill was developed as a bog garden (in summer a fabulous fusion of astibes, primulas, hostas and ligularia) focused around two small, connected ponds, crowded with waterlilies.

Lower down, by the old orchard, the only dry area of the valley, there are a mixture of shrubs and perennials on a predominantly gold and burgundy theme, in echo of the colour of the moorland hills, richly coated in heather and gorse.

This year visitors to the garden will be provided with a guide to the magnolia collection which was planted in Autumn 1999, as a memorial to Iris Pugh, the original creator of the garden. The collection is centred on a sheltered one acre lawn tilled in Iris’s time over the former miller’s donkey paddock (Caleb’s field).

The ‘Docton Mill’ magnolias have the potential to grow into great, long-lived trees, to see out the 21^st century. They originated exclusively from Burncoose Nurseries near Redruth, Cornwall and include.

... nestling in one of Devon's magical valleys