October 2023 – GWENNIESGARDENWORLD

Russian vine or Fallopia Baldschuanica is a climber but it grows about 10 meters (390 inches) a year and every little shoot or branch that hits the ground forms a new plant so before you know it it will have taken over your whole garden, your heges and trees included. I have it in my garden cos my husband needs it for his birds, he gives them fresh leafs every day, and it gives beautiful flowers. In Winter it looks completely dead.

I took some pictures to show you what I mean.

This is the culprit I am talking about, you can see it here in bloom growing on top of my beech hedge.

The flowers here are already over the top, it is late October now, normally the flowers look more like white plumes.( see picture above)

Here you can see it forms a new plant.

This is a view of the aviary that is completely covered by the russian vine, when the leafs are gone my husband cuts all the wood down to a few inches but in Spring it comes back to life and GROWS !!! I think I can say it is invasive !!!

Once you have it in your garden it is hard to get rid of.

Have a great weekend all !

Last week I went to the zoo in Antwerp, it is a small zoo as it is in the middle of the city center and very old so they can’t make it bigger than it is now. And as small gardens is what I can manage I thought this was the perfect place for a bit of enjoyment. And it was but it was too big for me, fortunately they had many resting area’s and banks all over the place so I could sit down regularly. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.

Fauntains are always attractive, especially on a warm sunny day.

This plant caught my eye, I had never seen it before but thanks to wikipedia I found out what it was. It is called palm cabbage ; brassica oleracea var.palmifolia. It is also called Winter cabbage. It is bi-annual , winterhardy and edible. It is an ancient vegetable. In the zoo garden they used it between the flowers and it looked very pretty.

This is a cute South-African penguin called ; Blackfeet penguin, they love warmth and water and they are thriving in the zoo.

This big bird looked like a statue, I haven’t got a clue what it is called.

Huge marabou, ugli but impressive.

Crane bird.

Meercat, they had several but they are always on the move. It is very pleasant to observe them.

By far my favorite animals ; monkeys !!! Unfortunally you can’t interact with them as they were all behind glas to protect them from getting illnesses from the visitors.

Spider monkey

As this zoo is very old they have a lot of huge tree’s. This one is a platane.

This is a close up of the trunck of the platane.

A koala, they look so cuddly.

This plant was in the green house, I was amased by the dimention of the leafs.

Sweet love between this 2 young gorilla’s.

Reflection in the water of the penguins.

Unfortunately it was too late in the year to capture all the flowers, normally you have flowers every where.

They had art all over the zoo. This bronze baboon was made by Jaap Klaas (1898-1972).

This icebear was created by Erwin Peeters (1964)

There were lots of other animals but in the end I had to rest, I found myself a nice shady place near the spider monkeys and I told my husband he could go alone and see more animals, so he did.

Have a great day all !