Prune for June

Winter can be a pretty grim time in the garden. It's wet, the leaves are off the trees, and you probably feel like turning your back on the the whole thing and hunkering down with a good book. But winter is the time to prune (most of!) your roses for a great display next summer.

I have a great knowledge and love of roses, gained through working at Pashley Manor and managing the Bishop of Rochester's garden. Pruning a collection of roses over a number of years you get to see how they react year to year - taking out old wood, and promoting strong new growth that has better flowering potential. Even an old, neglected rose responds fantastically to pruning, generating new stems and flowering prolifically.

I have a particular affection for pruning and training climbing and rambling roses. You can be quite creative in training them, creating stem shapes that provide interest in winter even before the main show starts in the summer. I've trained the stems of climbers into spiral shapes against a wall, and on pergolas I wind the stems around the supports. The trick with climbers and ramblers is to train the stems towards the horizontal. This slows the sap and promotes flowering.

For all other roses, I aim to create an open goblet shape, to allow good air circulation in the centre of the plant. This reduces the risk of diseases such as blackspot. It also means you lessen the likelihood of stems rubbing against each other - another opening for disease.

In all cases, remove dead, diseased and dying wood. And favour strong young stems over older growth. The younger stems will provide more flower power come the summer.