Back at the end of June my husband son and I spent several days walking in Switzerland and Italy. We started out in this marvellous town called Splügen, where we stayed for a couple of nights.

I've never been to Switzerland before but I felt I knew its landscape. After all, I was a Heidi fan. I watched the tele series back in the 70s. I knew there'd be lakes, steep hills and mountains. It would be pretty and majestic. I also knew that Switzerland was a wealthy country and everything would be well ordered and very very first world. Did you know that Switzerland has more banks than dentists and over half the population own guns. And, should a nuclear bomb have been dropped on Switzerland while my family and I were visiting we would've been fine. Switzerland has enough underground bunkers to house its entire population.

I was completely unprepared for the simple beauty of the Switzerland I saw from my hotel window. There was snow on the mountain tops and trees that looked like Christmas trees - everywhere. I could hear birds singing and water rushing through a rocky chasm and ever so faintly was the sound of bells - hundreds of them.

I'll take you for a quick walk around the block in Splügen, starting at this water trough.

If you look carefully, you will notice a small garden to the left of the river and a flight of stone steps down to it.

Here's a closer look at the summer garden and the stone steps.

A small taster of some of the wildflowers I was soon to see lots of.

Our first day walk was a circular one. Zigzagging 5 kilometres up a hillside track, scrambling over boulders in places until we came to a small house by a lake.

We started out on a track through the forest. European forests are completely different to New Zealand forests, which we call 'The Bush'. This is because the trees, shrubs and ferns grow so bushily that they form a thick and impenetrable wall of green.

There were so many wild flowers. More then I could photograph. As bad luck would have it, I accidentally changed the setting on my new digital camera that allowed me to tap the part of the photo I wanted in sharp focus. I ended up with lots of blurry flower photos that I couldn't use. I'm an analogue girl at heart.

Looking back at Splügen. You can see the church tower in the distance.

Wild carrot Daucus carota — Wild carrot *Daucus carota*

Bell shaped flowers, probably belonging to the Bellflower family Campanulaceae. — Bell shaped flowers, probably belonging to the Bellflower family *Campanulaceae*.

The large white flowers are most likely from the Saxifrage family, Saxifragaceae. — The large white flowers are most likely from the Saxifrage family, *Saxifragaceae*.

Butterbur Petastites hybridus. — Butterbur *Petastites hybridus*.

Alpenrose Rhododendron ponticum. — Alpenrose *Rhododendron ponticum.*

There are 3 lakes in this area. This one is the first.

This is the second lake and the one we're heading for.

A member of the Stonecrop family, Crassulaceae. — A member of the Stonecrop family, *Crassulaceae.*

Possibly a member of the Gentian family, Gentianaceae. — Possibly a member of the Gentian family, *Gentianaceae*.

We are heading back down the mountainside.

Yarrow Alchillea millefolium. — Yarrow *Alchillea millefolium.*

As we walked back along this new path we heard lots of bells ringing, quite loudly.

This looks like a plant from the Mint family, Labiatae. A Bugle perhaps? But on second thoughts don't plants from the mint family have square stems? This plant has round stems so it probably isn't from the Labiatae clan...plant identification isn't … — This looks like a plant from the Mint family, *Labiatae*. A Bugle perhaps? But on second thoughts don't plants from the mint family have square stems? This plant has round stems so it probably isn't from the *Labiatae* clan...plant identification isn't easy.

Lady's mantle Alchemilla vulgaris. — Lady's mantle *Alchemilla vulgaris.*

This tree has a strange fungus growing on its trunk.

The cows and goats all have bells around their necks. It was these guys we could hear two hills over.

I could've done with a book about European wild flowers on my walks. I found a lovely book in Montespluga but it was written in Italian. Six weeks after I returned to New Zealand I found exactly what I was looking for on my bookshelf. I'd forgotten I even owned it. I bought it when I was sixteen. I don't know why I bought it because it's useless in New Zealand. We don't have hundreds of wildflowers and the ones we do have are classified as weeds.

I've used my book to identify the wild flowers in my photographs. My photographs aren't very explicit whereas the illustrations in the book are excellent. I reckon that an excellent botanical artist captures a plant more clearly and simply than a photographer can.

Our second walk was along a section of the Via Spluga, which is a very old transport route between Switzerland and Italy. You can see the cobbled pathway running across the meadows. Napoleon's troops traveled along the Via Spluga. Many of them fell to their death in the Cardinello Gorge.

You can see how wide the original path is. It's wide enough to get horses and carts along it.

We followed the path over the bridge and around the right hand side of the lake. The patches of pink are mass groups of Alpenrose.

The path grew narrower and climbed higher and higher up the rocky hillside. It was terrifying. I didn't take any photographs because I was too scared one of us would slip and fall into the lake. Eventually the path started to descend and we arrived at the dam. Photographs don't give any idea of the scale of this landscape.

The view from the dam. This is the Cardinello Gorge. You can see the Via Spluga wending its way along the left hand cliffside - halfway down from the top.

We took one look at the narrow path with its vertical drop-offs and decided we were too chicken to walk it.

We walked back to Montespluga along the road and treated ourselves to pizza beer and hot chocolates. It wasn't such a bad place to wile away a couple of hours until the bus came.

I didn't find much on the internet about wild flowers of Switzerland. The World Wide Web ought to be renamed. It's just a bunch of random unconnected ramblings. Still I found out a few interesting things. Most of the blue flowers I saw belonged to either the gentian or bellflower family. And, most of the yellow flowers belonged to the daisy, rose, primrose, gentian or buttercup family. There are hardly any red coloured wild flowers. A lot of wild flowers are poisonous such as arnica and wolfsbane and many are protected, meaning you can't pick them.

With the exception of the Alpenrose the wild flowers we came across in the alpine meadows were small. The true charm of wild flowers is their simplicity, their demureness and minuteness. They make suburban garden flowers seem gaudy and downright brash.

A few weeks after we left Italy I was in London. I was mooching around the National Portrait Gallery bookshop looking for books about plants. I came across this.

The best way to describe The Paper Garden, which is masterful, is to call it a biography about an extraordinary artist written by a notable poet. The artist is a woman called Mary Delany who, in 1772, at the age of 72, began to make exquisite paper collages of flowers. She made 985 more-or-less botanically correct pictures.

Mary Delany's collages are housed at the British Museum. If you happen to be in London and want to view them, you'll have to make a booking first.

Spring has arrived. Time to get out into my garden and potter.

What I love about pottering is that you never really know what you'll end up doing. You start in one place doing one thing. Then a few hours pass and you find yourself doing things you'd never planned and never thought of.

Take today for example. I popped out to the front garden to plant some gladioli bulbs, pale green and ivory white (at least that's what it said on the packet - last time I planted pale green glads they turned out to be purple). This was going to be a quick job.

Before I began digging the holes for the bulbs I noticed a neighbouring day lily that needed to be moved, some branches on a nearby karo tree that needed lopping and two foxgloves growing in the wrong place. Needless to say I found the perfect home for them, lopped the branches and moved the day lily. It was half an hour before I could finally plant my bulbs.

I was putting away my spade, pruning saw and trowel when I noticed that the lemon tree, which grows in a pot on the brick courtyard, was dying. The sun was shining and there wasn't a breath of wind. It felt like spring, though technically it's winter. I had nothing better to do. Well, actually I had dishes to wash and a novel to write but the garden was calling. So, I cut up the lemon tree and put it on my organic waste pile behind the mamaku. Then I shovelled all the soil from the large pot, a half wine barrel, into my wheelbarrow. It wouldn't fit. I had more soil then I knew what to do with. That required some thinking. I made myself a cup of tea and wandered around the garden looking for an answer. I came up with a brilliant solution. I could use the extra soil to extend my meadow garden. It was far too narrow and could do with being widened. Fast forward several hours and I'd doubled the size of my meadow garden (which involved digging up turf and moving bricks). I'd also fitted in weeding the nearby 'edible perennial and herb garden' .

It all started with two packets of gladioli bulbs. That's pottering for you. To potter is to fiddle, tinker, dabble, fritter, footle and fribble. What a great way to spend a Saturday.