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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There are some red roses and some white ones there and the sky is very blue so, maybe even my Lewes garden is looking patriotic this Jubilee weekend. There is pink and yellow too so let’s not get too carried away. Maybe you should try to forget about the Diamond Jubilee for a bit and just take a quiet look at my roses trying to imagine the perfume. This year the different colours are beginning to mingle and the result, so far, is very satisfying. There are a lot of buds out there so it will only get better. Enjoy.

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I know it looked lovely with that profusion of flowers from the clematis and passionflower but, it had just got too much so this weekend I had to do the dirty deed…..

…..I was out their with my secateurs and before long, I had lost my qualms about hacking down blooming flowers….

I have now got the beginnings of a rose garden here in Lewes without the jungle look that I had hoped to control but, let’s admit it, I failed. I shall now endeavour to weave my climbing roses into a multi-coloured hedge. There is now plenty of room for them and for me.

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