"It makes the trees more visible to drivers at night." Say some. Yes, it does. But that's not why the Greeks paint them.

"It's cosmetic, makes them look bright and summery." Hmm, not so inventive that one, and wrong anyway.

In fact, the traffic explanation is particularly daft when you consider that lots of white-painted trees are nowhere near roads or tracks used by vehicles anyway. Some are on the terraces of houses. Definitely pedestrian territory. Well, unless you count that little battery-powered jeep that the occasional toddler bashes around in as a vehicle.

So, why do they do it? Well, just as a side point here: I used to think that it demonstrated just how sloppy your average Greek is with a paint brush. If you approach any such visually altered tree soon after painting you'll see that the surrounding area is liberally sprinkled with white splashes and spots, not to mention the clothes of the bloke who'd done the painting.

And his glasses, if he wears them.

And his hair, if he has any.

Not the kind of scene that would have you rushing to ask him to do your lounge. Not, that is, unless you want half your tiled or crushed and polished marble chipping floors to look like there'd been an explosion in a cream factory or something.

No, There was little old inexperienced me thinking: I'm pretty good with a paintbrush or roller, but most of these Greeks who paint tree trunks white could do with a lesson or two at the night school for painters and decorators. That was until I tried it.

So, to cut to the quick, finally. Funny how we say "to the quick" isn't it? In Greece it's a safer bet to say let's cut "to the slow," or better still, "to the slower." I suppose the "quick" here referred to is the quick of one's fingernails. A procedure over which I wouldn't want to spent a long time ruminating because it has the effect of bringing tears to my eyes, pain and the experience thereof not being one of my favourite hobbies. Yes, I know exactly what they paint the trees with and it's not your regular white emulsion from the local DIY store. No, it's lime. It's what the locals call "asves'tis."

You buy it in a plastic see-through sack about half the size of a sack of cement, within which you find a wet white paste, a bit like toothpaste, but with water (well, a very white version of water) swilling around in there too. Having clipped your way into the sack, you squeeze some of this paste into a receptacle, say an old emulsion tub or some such thing, then mix a bit more water with it and stir. No need for any simmering here though. Get your four-inch brush out and head for the nearest tree that requires the treatment.

And what exactly is the treatment? Well, lime (as all you experts out there will already know) has some interesting properties. It apparently repels a lot of insects and other creepy crawlies which have the habit of trotting up your average fruit tree and farming its aphid herds while effectively destroying the crop on the tree. Or maybe they don't bother with the aphids and simply chomp away at the foliage themselves or burrow their way into the fruit and destroy it from the inside out. The canny Greek knows that to shell out for manufactured chemicals to protect his fruit trees is not cheap. Not that he's a great environmentalist or anything, it's purely economic, sadly. A bag of hydrated lime is pennies (three or four Euros for enough to cover an orchard's worth of trunks) and so is his preferred option, no contest.

So this year, since we care for John & Wendy's orchard, which adjoins our garden and also supplies fruit for our breakfast table frequently through the course of the year, I decided it was time to avail myself of some of this wonder treatment and slap it on a few tree trunks. The fact that having all our trees (including a rubber tree, a loquat tree, several olives, a Jacaranda or two, a Bay and a fig) would make the garden look much more "Greek" may also have been a factor, I admit. I don't admit to a lot of things, but this I do, with all humility.

So I pass by the local builder's yard and buy a wet polythene sack of the stuff. Though not before having been shafted good and proper by a certain DIY store proprietor in Arhangelos who, when I asked him if he sold the "stuff you put on trees to stop the ants", since at the time I couldn't remember the Greek word for lime, sold me a plastic pot of interior use emulsion.

I looked at it and, knowing exactly what it was, asked again, "Do the locals actually use this to stop the ants then? I thought that what I needed was something else...[still couldn't remember the word for lime]."

"Oh yes, that's what you need. Nine Euro ninety five please."

Now he obviously thought that I couldn't read what was on the tub. I could, but with the way he assured me that this was what I needed, I had to accept that perhaps these days this stuff actually did contain something that deterred ants and so bowed (well, only metaphorically of course) to his superior wisdom. Subsequently, having painted a few trunks with brilliant white interior use emulsion for walls and watched as the ants barely waited for it to dry before resuming their long highway-lines of workers going up and down (in both directions!), I came to realize that his wisdom had not in any way been superior, but his powers of deception certainly were. Lime isn't green, no, but maybe you could accuse me...

So I go on line and Google my way to the real stuff, hydrated lime. Then I discover that DIY and decorating stores here, in fact even some garden centres, don't sell it. You have to go to the local builder's yard to be sure of a supply. Fortunately for us we do have a rather good local builders' merchant, where we've made quite a few purchases over the years, just down the road near Gennadi. the fellow behind the desk in the little office knows us and - I'm relieved to add - doesn't rip us off. So, three Euros and a few pence worse off I drive out of the yard in a cloud of dust and head home with my bag of lime. This time I’m going to get it right.

Having positioned my trust kneeling mat close to the first trunk that I am going to treat (for a second time!), I give the stuff in my pot a stir and dip in the brush. I very soon realize why the Greeks leave great splashes of the stuff all over the place when they do this because I am very soon doing the same. It's the consistency of the mixture that's the problem. The lime doesn't mix smoothly with the water anyway so you get thicker bits and watery bits, but by and large (in fact, by and even larger) it's impossible to apply it without getting everything in the vicinity covered in white splashes. Not that you realize this right away of course. When I come to treat a trunk that I hadn't previously painted with the emulsion I notice that, as you apply it, it's almost see-through. It looks as though it's not going to "cover" at all. It just leaves a grey film over the surface you've just lovingly and painstakingly brushed. I even triy a few stones around our little lemon tree near the car port and they look horrible, just like they did before, only paler.

So, as you leave splodges and splashes all over the place you don't actually realise you're doing it.

That is of course, until it dries.

Then a miracle occurs. It dries totally and brilliantly white! As of course do all the extra areas you've dropped the stuff on to without intending to. I find myself mentally apologizing to all the Greeks I'd criticized in the past for doing such a sloppy job. The trunks look fab and so do the stones I'd experimented with. Of course, there are all kinds of fetching white irregularly-shaped marks in various parts of the orchard and garden too, but these, I like to think, add to the authenticity of the job.