Cecily Mary Barker had a romantic image of the wild rose. The queen of wild flowers, floating elegantly in pink drapery. Delightful. It was an image I shared through most of my childhood. I loved the wild rose bush that was the centrepiece of our back garden in Luton. It wasn’t supposed to be there, an interloper from next door’s untended hedge, but my mother’s attempts to block it out with plantings of flax, marigolds and Virginia stock never had a chance of competing. I loved my dog rose then, so I was pleased to find it growing all along my lane in West Wales. Yes I still regard the flowers as very attractive, but I wouldn’t say my image of them is romantic any more. June, with its roses, is the month of insurgency, not of elegance, and we are the enemy.

Back in April and May, Mother Nature…