I spent most of Sunday pruning my roses here in my Lewes, UK garden on the day that the temperature rose to 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit). With all the essential early Spring gardening jobs done, I can sit back and enjoy the flowering bulbs and lick my wounds of course. For me there’s no rose-pruning without bloodshed.

The only red in my garden is dripping from my hands, the rest is a splendid mix of yellow, blue, mauve and purple supplied by the daffodils, croci and the Chionodoxa luciliae.

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

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I’ve been summer pruning my roses after  this year’s spectacular display in my little Lewes town garden. Sad though it is to see the roses go after their glorious first  flush, I’m an enthusiastic pruner who delights in retaining control over plants that insist on growing beyond the restraints I impose on them.

The rose bushes, all from David Austen Ltd,  form a hedge down one side of the garden and, if allowed, would soon turn into climbers with nowhere to go. It’s good to see them cut down to size again before the new cycle begins and the roses return in August. They haven’t all disappeared luckily because I’ve planted some less vigorous shrub roses out there too and some of them are still in their first flush.

This is Brother Cadfael one of my garden’s current stars with its beautifully solid flowers, radiantly pink colouring and deep old rose perfume.

Golden Celebration gets going later than the others too and it now in its full glory. This too has a seductive perfume, tangier but no less intoxicating than Brother Cadfael.

The climber that still hasn’t quite given up on its first flush is the vigorous and eye-catching white rose, Iceberg. Another week it it too will be pruned back ready to start all over again between August and the first frosts.

I took these photographs just as the heatwave in this part of England started to threaten a thunder storm. It rained but, so far, the thunder and lightning are still just an imminent threat. I’m pleased though that the pruning work was completed before the inevitable storm.

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I have been in Italy for two weeks and very good it was to be there. I’ll tell you about it later this week but, for now, just believe me that it is exceedingly pleasant to sit outside your own front door on a sunny (and hot) morning, under your own grape fine, with an excellent cup of espresso coffee. The only trouble was…

…unfortunately, when I returned last night, I saw that my garden had been having a wild old time while I was away. Time for some stern discipline, I think, with string and secateurs. I’ve already started on it and it feels good to be home.

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Yesterday my mind had scheduled for rose pruning because my climbers are now getting ready for their fourth year here in my small Lewes town garden which I started from scratch, yes, four years ago. I am determined to assert my authority on these wild and vigorous plants this year so that there is also a little bit of room for me in the garden too this summer.

So I set to work suitably gauntleted against the viciously sharp thorns with my favourite garden tool, secateurs. With climbing roses, it is a battle for supremacy between plant and gardener so we humans have to decide whether it is them or us.

I was pretty nasty and cut out all the weak stems, the dead wood and some of the healthy branches that just won’t listen when I tell them not to grow in the wrong direction. They took their revenge when I had to take off my gloves to tie the saved branches into their new position. No matter how hard I try, I always end up with hands far bloodier than Lady Macbeth’s.

Maybe I am a tad anal retentive but, heigh-ho, I do love the sight of all my climbers trained into obedience – it is all to do with making order out of chaos. They want to reach up to the sky but I want them to grow sideways so that the blooms cover the wall and fill the garden with perfume.

The other great thing about rose pruning time is that even though it is grey February, I  reminded that it will not be long before my Sussex flint walls will be covered with colourful and sweetly-smelling roses.  That is worth the shedding of a bit of blood.  This is what my roses looked like last year. I can smell them already – oh no, silly me, it is the disinfectant cream that I just smeared on my scratches.

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