Tamidol and Sanki get stuck in to the edible garden at Howletts. Pictures: Dave Rolfe

What happens when you give a gorilla a fantastic, lush garden of sunflowers and lavender? They eat it!

Howletts' gardening team at Canterbury bedecked out the home of their western lowland gorillas with a delicious edible garden.

Normally used to tending to the gardens at the 90-acre wild animal park, they painstakingly transformed the gorillas' large enclosure.

They added more than 15 varieties of plants, including sunflowers, hazel, apple, lavender, runner bean plants, bamboo, willow and plum.

David Sutton, Head Gardener at Howletts said: "The idea for the gorilla garden came to us when we had to cut back a large banana plant for the winter as it had grown unmanageably tall.

"The idea was then expanded to use the sunflowers that we have grown for their seed heads and some of the herbs that we grow to form a regular part of the animals diets.

"I decided that if we were going to do it we may as well do it properly and go to town with providing a great experience for the gorillas and an opportunity for the team to do something a little out of the ordinary.’"

The 12-strong group of gorillas, headed by impressive silverback, Djanghou, were given access to the newly-decorated garden while keepers and gardeners held their breath.

Lorna Wanless, head of gorilla section, said: "All of the group were happy to see so much food scattered around – they immediately got busy investigating, foraging and eating.

Djanghou doesn't seem too impressed by his floral foliage treat! Picture: Dave Rolfe

"Unfortunately the sunflowers and lavender were passed over for the banana leaves and we removed them two days later.

"The flowers may not have been popular with the gorillas but they acted as an effective air freshener – the enclosure smelled great!"

Howletts is home to the largest collection of western lowland gorillas in the world and along with the sister park Port Lympne, near Ashford are credited as the most successful breeders of the species - now critically endangered in the wild.