Bee swarm in Cushendun? Help is a minute away.

Cushendun is a small National Trust village at the mouth of the Dun River where Glendun — one of the wildest and most dramatic of the Glens of Antrim — meets the North Channel. The village is unusual for County Antrim in being substantially white-rendered in the Cornish-cottage style, designed by Clough Williams-Ellis — the architect of Portmeirion — for the Marchioness of Londonderry in the 1920s; the square of Cornish-style cottages is a listed group and makes Cushendun one of the most architecturally distinctive villages on the Antrim coast. Glendun itself is a remote upland glen carved through the basalt by the Dun River, and the upper valley carries rough heather moorland above 200 metres that is among the most pristine in the Glens; the lower glen holds oak and ash hanging woodland on its steep valley sides above the river. The bay and the cave system in the cliffs below the road — which serves as a filming location — attract walkers throughout the year. Sycamore on the village lane trees provides the May flow; heather on the Glendun upland moorland gives an excellent late-summer flow from late July. Hawthorn and whitethorn on the coastal scrub and Glens hedgerows carry the spring blossom; sea-thrift on the foreshore adds spring colour. Bramble on the glen-side and coastal bank scrub extends the season; ivy on the whitewashed cottage walls closes the year.

Blackthorn and whitethorn on deep field hedges open the year. Sycamore is the backbone of May; hawthorn follows hard. Lime lines Belfast and Ballymena streets. The Glens of Antrim contribute bell and ling heather on the high moors between Cushendall and Glenariff, a late summer crop still commercially worked. Bilberry in basalt scree hills, bramble in every sheltered townland, and a long ivy flow on white-rendered cottage walls close the year.