We're lucky in Monmouthshire to have so many beautiful countryside sites to enjoy including picnic sites, nature reserves, country parks, historical sites, common land, riverside meadows and woodland.
There are also many wonderful gardens to visit, excellent opportunities to indulge ourselves buying plants, and beautiful places to stay. We even have our own Town of Flowers in Usk. Best of all, we have fellow gardeners who share our horticultural passions. People who love gardens, we’ve discovered, are generous with their time, enthusiasm and knowledge.
Four of Wales’ best Arts and Crafts gardens are located in Monmouthshire: High Glanau, Wyndcliffe Court, Mathern Palace and Mounton House. All were designed by Henry Avray Tipping, an architectural historian, writer, garden designer and lover of plants who lived in Monmouthshire for many years.
For lovers of naturalistic and wild planting, there's the prestigious Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Partner Garden of the Year (2022) at Nant-y-bedd, a ten-acre organic garden at 1,200 feet, hidden deep in the Black Mountains near Abergavenny.
Monmouthshire even has a lost garden at Dewstow, an astonishing Grade 1 listed garden with grottoes, pools and rock gardens extending over two and a half hectares, which were buried for 50 years.
See all Monmouthshire's glorious gardens and parks below.