What’s the first thing you do when you see a rose? You stick your nose straight in it and have a good sniff. But, oh, the disappointment if there is no glorious scent.

My philosophy with roses is 'no scent no point'.

My mum gave me two which are my absolute favourites. They are: Rosa ‘Compassion’ – a large and vigorous climbing rose grows up to 3m has glossy dark foliage on red stems, the fragrant blooms are double, apricot pink-tinged which get up to 10cm in width.

The other one is Rosa ‘Ena Harkness’ a tea rose with an apple fragrance displaying velvet-red flowers from late spring until summer.

If you’ve got room for a third, and we always have room for another rose, try Rosa ‘New Dawn’ flowering for a long period (June until the frosts) with silvery-pink, semi-double flowers either grown as a climber or can be a weeping standard.

Pruning late spring shrubs

Everything has put on so much growth very quickly and it’s good to reign things in to give a bit of order.

So as well as giving your hedging a light trim (not too much as you don’t want to disturb the nesting birds) you need to prune your late spring flowering shrubs.

If you’re not sure if yours falls into this category the general rule is shrubs that flower before June 15 should be pruned soon after flowering.

If you wait and prune these shrubs in late summer, autumn or even early in spring you will remove the flower buds and therefore the flowers.

Always trim out dead, damaged, and diseased or crossing stems first before shaping, step back to have a look from a distance often to make sure you don’t get carried away!

While you’re at it, cut back oriental poppies and pulmonarias to ground level after flowering and you will be rewarded with a fresh flush of foliage.

Deadheading is essential to keep your blooms coming, it’s quite a therapeutic job and I do it as I’m doing my endless rounds of watering at night.

I’m not complaining, the scents in the garden in the evening are heavenly.

Another job while I’m on the rounds is removing the side shoots of tomatoes, if in doubt these are the shoots that appear between the leaf and main stem. If you don’t do this your tomatoes will grow off in many directions, starting a new main stem at each branch and you will also get less tomatoes.

This does not apply to bush tomatoes, as this will reduce cropping. Tie in the main stem to a 3ft bamboo cane and pinch out the tip of the main stem when it reaches the top of the cane.

Start feeding your tomatoes regularly now with a high potassium fertiliser.