GWENNIESGARDENWORLD

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 !

August 15, 2025August 17, 2025

SILENT SUNDAY oeps, it’s Saturday today

July 27, 2025

A FEW FLOWERS IN MY GARDEN

I took a few pictures in my garden this week, June and July are the prettiest month’s of the year over here.

A half dubble hibiscus syriacus, the bees love to visit the flowers. The red flowers in the back are crocosmias.

The same flower from another angle.

Hens and chicks are also in bloom at the moment.

Crocosmia lucifer, always performing abundantly every Summer

Hens and chicks with a few visitors; a yellow little violet who selfsowed in this pot.

This beauty is called mirabilis jalapa, always a succes, they have black seeds in the form of a pea, you put a seed in a small pot or straight in the garden and a few weeks later you have a lovely bushy plant with beautiful flowers, there are several colors, in a cold climate they die down in Autumn after the first frost but when they stay alive underground they form a big root who will turn into a bigger plant, you can try to dig up the roots before the first frost and keep them frost free, then plant them in the garden after the frost is gone.

Have a great week ! I hope you all have a lovely Summer. Take care.

July 13, 2025

SILENT SUNDAY

July 9, 2025July 9, 2025

THE FLOWERS WE MET IN THE NETHERLANDS

As always I look arround for flowers, plants and trees, not only on vacation. But I found a few gems on holiday,

Evening primrose or oenothera macrocarpa in a lovely sunny color

Deer hay or hypericum with soft pink buds.

I loved this malva with the dark purple veins

A wild rose along the road

A dark leaved elderberry wit pink flowers, what a beauty !!

Orange is the national colour in the Netherlands, so you see it everywhere and in everything, even in cakes, ice cream, fountains with orange coloured water, clothes…..you name it, they got it in ORANGE

We saw lots of wild orchids, but only this soft purple one but there were many of them.

This is the pretty flower of the hogweed plant (heracleum montegazzianum) but beware, it is dangerous, if you touch it you can get painful blisters.

This is a small hogweed plant, they can really get to 2 meters high and they come in huge numbers at the same place, it is a relative of the parsley herb.

I don’t know how this plant is called but it was about 3 meters tall and we saw it in many places, against that blue sky it was a adorable !

Thanks for visiting and take care. Enjoy all the flowers and plants in your neighbourhood !

July 2, 2025

A SHORT VACATION IN THE NETHERLANDS

Recently we had a short vacation in the Netherlands. We live at the border with the Netherlands but in Belgium. We went to the very north to a province called ; Friesland, surrounded by the sea, although The Netherlands are surrounded by the sea for the whole of the West and North part and they also have several small islands you can visit by boat, some of the islands do not allow cars,

What is typical about the Netherlands, it is very green and they have a lot of water, sea water but also streams and ponds and lakes, water everywhere you can see. Almost every family there owns a boat, or 2 or more.

The green plants you see behind the water is reed, they have lots of it and they often cover the roofs of their homes with dried reed,

This is a farm house with a roof of reed.

They have lots of horses and cows

As they had numerous huge floods in the past with many people death, they made dikes, lots of dikes, all arround the sea, they are quite high and covered in grass, and on the dikes are sheep who keep the grass short.

An old sailing boat, still in use.

More old sailing boats,

An old mill build in 1861, still in use,

The old house above was build in 1835, at first 2 families lived in this house, nowadays just one family, most of the inside still looks like in 1835.

Almost everyone in The Netherlands moves around on a bike. They have broad cycle paths away from the roads.

Evening sun.

We were lucky with the weather but there was a lot of wind, wind is normal near the sea but it was more than normal.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip to the Netherlands, a country with a King and a Queen.

May 11, 2025

If so, let me know ok ?

Take care !

April 12, 2025

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

With temperatures between 15 C° and 25C° nature is fully awake now. We went to the arboretum as our garden is a mess at the moment, and I took some pictures.