Autumn

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025

AN EXPERIMENT

Somewhere in September I decided to plant 6 sunflowerseeds (the beginning of Autumn here) As I was feeding the birds outside in the garden I saw a few sunflower seeds among the mixture of seeds. I filled 2 smal pots with potting compost and put 3 seeds in each pot. A few days later I saw the first seed had sprouted and the next few days they were all visible. I put them high up on a table as the slugs love young fresh plants . A few weeks later I planted them out in the garden , all 6 of them so now I have sunflowers in the garden. My husband called me crazy to start with sunflowers so late in the year. I have no clue what breed they are, they all have a different hights, some are in bud others in flower. So now I know I can start early with seeding sunflowers and seed some every 3 months or so, to enjoy them in Spring and Summer and Autumn. And I don’t even have to buy seeds as we always have a mixture of seed for the birds in our garden.

I think the buds are very pretty too.

I will let you know how they evolve. So far the weather is still arround 15 C° and at the moment there is no frost in sight.

I hope you all still enjoy the plants in the garden or on your balcony. Take care !

August 31, 2025

A WALK IN THE LOCAL HEATH AREA

My husband and I decided to go to the local heath area for a walk in late afternoon when the heat was bearable. It is a lovely and natural area where there are sheep, cows and deer but none of them showed themselves, it is quite a large area (large for my tiny country) so they could be everywhere, as I a can’t walk for long we saw only a small area but it was enjoyable and very very quiet, we only saw a few people who were also walking.

A pine tree and heather (erica), it was only the start of the heather flowering, you can also see how dry the grasses were.

More pines, weathered by the rain, wind, sun and storms.

Close-up of the heather flowering.

More trees and dry grasses.

Dried wood everywhere.

We found proof the cows had been there. The sun made rocks of these “remains”.

We’ll get an early Autumn as we had a very dry Summer.

More trees with Autumn leafs.

Remains of a fallen tree.

What I liked most was the peace and quiet and being in a natural environment. When a tree dies they don’t remove it, they let nature do what it does best. If the tree falls they let it lie, the insects and the funghi do the rest untill there is nothing left, the animals are free to go where they want, they do get a bit of help with food and water but arround the heath area is an electric wire so they can’t escape and get killed on the road. Our country is tiny so we don’t have the space of a much bigger country. Besides, the population density in my part of the country is 507/ square kilometer.

Have a great week and enjoy your garden or balcony, try to create a piece of nature, however small, it will make you happy !!

Take care !

November 19, 2024

MY CALLICARPA

I have a bush in the garden who gives lovely purple berries in Autumn, it really looks awesome. I couldn’t get a picture of the bush as it didn’t have the right background, every other bush has ugly leafs now and the leafs are falling, so I took a small branch and put it in a small vase.

This is a small branch of the Callicarpa bodinieri.

I hope your Winter will be good ! Take care !

September 12, 2024September 12, 2024

The Summer that was no real Summer is gone and Autumn is already visible. It is now the 12th of September and already we have had more rain in these 12 days than we get normally in the whole month, so September is the 12th month in a row that we get more rain than what is normal. And more rain is on the way. Not that I am complaining, I’m just telling what this Summer was like. We had hot days too but never 3 days in a row and the garden suffered, the flowers never stayed pretty for long.

Here are a few Autumn pictures for you.

I hope all is well with you and to those who have Autumn, enjoy it, to those who have Spring, enjoy it !!

Thank you for visiting !!

October 11, 2023October 11, 2023

ZOO ZOO ZOO

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 !

October 30, 2022

LAST PELARGONIUM FLOWERS

This is my last pelargonium flowerstalk of this year, they have been flowering from May and they will last for another week, maybe two. They are not frost resistand. We have had extreme Autumn weather with high temperatures, 10 to 15 C° higher than normal for this time of the year, that is why they are in bloom for so long. I did water them well when it was so hot in Summer, that helped of course. I’ll try to keep them till next year by putting them in my unheathed greenhouse. If we get a soft Winter they will manage.

Have a great week !

October 16, 2022

SILENT SUNDAY

October 14, 2022

OCTOBER PICTURES

Hello again. I haven’t been posting a lot lately because I didn’t take a lot of pictures. At first it was too hot and the flowers just burned to a crisp, then came the rain, lots of rain, and ruined what was left.

But I managed to take a few in the end, so here are the pictures I took in October.

**NOT FLOWERS BUT BERRIES OF MY HOLLY TREE**

In October ?? Yes, in October. My grandson planted 3 seeds in a little pot in July, when he went on holiday I was asked to look after them for a few weeks, they looked so tiny and so sad, so I planted them in a big pot each and in the sun, my grandson was very happy when he came back and saw how big they had grown and asked me to look after them permanently.They only got buds at the beginning of October.

This is what they look like now, he didn’t know what sort of sunflower it was so they are not huge ones but I love the way they look.

They did suffer a lot from the heath and I was sure they had died but the rain gave them new life, the plant is not as huge as it is normally but it looks nice in the garden.

These leafs give a lot of color to the garden at the moment, normally this tree is bold in October but again, the rain did a good job.

Not the best picture but my yellow begonias are still blooming well and light up the garden.

What is still blooming in your garden ?

Have a great weekend and enjoy your garden.

August 20, 2022

MY GARDEN AT THE MOMENT

We had a heathwave lately, and my garden didn’t like it, nor did I. In fact I hated it, we had temperatures we never had before and the drought is awfull !!. We got a nice bit of rain yesterday but not nearly enough, besides not every part of my country got rain, and it is the same in other European countries and all over the world as we can see on the news. I have never longed for Winter but now I do !! Streams became pools and then there are the fires all over Europe and in the rest of the world. It is just scary !!!!

I’ll show you some pictures of my garden. We were able to use a waterhose to spray the garden and I did, but the sun was just too hot.

**MY BIG RHODODENDRON RUINED it is supposed to be an evergreen**

**MY GERANIUM MICRORHIZZUM . but once we get colder and wetter weather it will grow green again, this one is really tough**

It looks like Autumn now, not only in my garden but everywhere. The temperatures are still high but less than before, still too hot for me.

I hope you all had a lovely Summer. Take care !

November 29, 2021November 29, 2021

BULB IN BLOOM

We had our first frosts over here, yikes !!! We had so much rain lately so everything is very wet and then wham temperatures below zero, now my garden looks so sad. In the south they even had a layer of snow !! So all I can do is looking at the pictures I made of the flowers earlier this year.

This is a bulb-plant and comes in several colours and shapes. It is a relative of the Amaryllis.

You all know the amaryllis bulb as they bloom in December, most are bright red and huge but they come in many colours.

Nerine flowers in Autumn. They are not always winterhardy, they can take cold but not wet conditions. This one is nerine bowdenii and is one of the most hardy of them all. I found this one in an arboretum I visited earlier this year.

Have a great week, keep safe cos “the beast is back”.