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Glenarm is the most southerly of the Glens of Antrim villages, at the mouth of the Glenarm River where it enters the North Channel between Larne and Carnlough. The village is dominated by Glenarm Castle, the ancestral seat of the Earls of Antrim and the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland still in continuous occupation by the same family since the thirteenth century; its walled garden, opened to visitors in spring and summer, is one of the finest estate kitchen gardens in Northern Ireland and its lime, apple and pear planting provides a June and summer flow distinctive to the castle grounds. The Glenarm Forest and upper glen provide mature oak, ash and hazel woodland above the village with a spring honeydew and pollen calendar; the basalt cliffs and coastal grassland between Glenarm and Carnlough hold thrift, sea-campion and bird's-foot trefoil through May and June. Sycamore on the village lane trees and castle demesne provides the May flow; hawthorn and whitethorn on the coastal path scrub carries the spring blossom. Heather on the Antrim plateau above the upper Glenarm glen gives an accessible late-summer upland flow for apiaries moving to the hills in July; whin on the lower slope scrub adds to the spring forage picture. Bramble on the glen-side and coastal bank scrub extends the season; ivy on the castle walls and cottage gardens 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.