For those of us with an interest in plants, I maintain that it doesn't much matter where we go for our summer holidays, because there will always be something to appeal to the gardener in us.

OK, those who insist on going to Antarctica or the Sahara for their hols may not see many plants, but everywhere else things are growing which will brighten up even the dullest of trips.

My family and I went to France again this year, because we like the pace of life, the food and the weather. We were based near Parthenay, in an area noted for its rolling pastureland, reclaimed marshes, and a pretty breed of red beef cattle, the Parthenaise.

While visiting the local sights we further amused ourselves spotting garden plants like dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus) and Sedum telephium growing wild in the hedgerows and herbs such as fennel, chicory and marjoram flowering in roadside verges.

Even a trip to the beach at La Rochelle yielded sightings of sea holly and sea lavender in nearby sand-dunes. Armed with a simple guide to the wildflowers of Britain and Europe, it's possible to identify most of the more obvious plants, in fact many are such familiar garden plants that the guide will not be necessary.

This year my interest in wild plants helped to pass a pleasant though rather hot afternoon at the site of some Gallo-Roman ruins at Sanxay, close to Niort. While my better half was absorbed in details of converted temples, under-floor heating, and plunge pools, I was able to get on with a little botanising. The rock underlying the ruins was limestone and, as a result, the soil was thin and dry. The turf consisted of a mixture of sparse grasses and a carpet of pink thyme and yellow vetch, together with a rich sprinkling of taller wildflowers.

Watched by small lizards basking on the warm masonry, I managed to identify green flowered Eryngium campestre, vipers bugloss (Echium vulgare), a purple-flowered, stemless thistle (Cirsium acaulon), the pink pea-like flowers of Ononis repens, and a bright blue salvia (Salvia pratensis).

The yellow flower spikes of a dwarf mullein or verbascum and the delicate white and pink trumpets of a creeping convolvulus defied my attempts at precise identification but were delightful nevertheless.

And as if all these flowers were not enough to keep me interested, I shared them with a variety of hoverflies, bumble bees, damselflies and butterflies in shades of blue, copper, orange, white and yellow. History has never been so interesting.

Jobs for the week:

Cut long grass that has been grown for wildflowers. Allow any ripened seed time to drop off before raking up the cut grass.

Continue to cut beech, cypress and yew hedges.

Bend over the leaves of spring-sown onions just above the neck of each bulb, to help the ripening process.