The evolution of my love affair with roses is an interesting one. It speaks of childhood indifference in a rose-less family home  to growing obsession.

From the  reluctant grunt of the teenager, to the understanding of the feel of soil in your hands as an adult and a dawning knowledge of plants, my feelings for the rose has evolved from a sense of fear to a sense of mystery.

Confronted with the generosity of the gardens of England in my early marriage to the toil of a rose garden and nursery in later years the obsession grew unabated by prickles and hard work. The history, romance and the stories of the genus was so unlimiting that I just sought more … and more… and more knowledge and plants.

That evolution of a love affair with gardening, and with roses, is a curious affair and I suspect that I am not the only sufferer. The early grunt became ‘oh really’ or ‘how beautiful’, - to the ‘now look here’ as I was pricked - to the ‘what and who are you’ - to the ‘I can’t live without – to the ‘I need more of you!’

Who but a masochist would labour over such a prickly and sometimes temperamental plant? Who but someone blinded by obsession would continue to have more and more ungrateful prickly beasts in the garden? Dirty bleeding hands, sore backs, nurturing and cajoling just for the beauty of that single bloom, that covered bush or the garden displaying example after example of diverse flowers. What other genus will reward you with blooms singular, semi-single, semi-double, double, so packed full of petals that they are more than double? On a bush which can be small or large, upright or sprawling, climbing or rambling? With fragrances that smell so sweetly of rose, of myrrh, of spice, of tea.

As a schoolgirl I was a dab hand at history. Maths and sciences held no allure to me but I was fascinated with the stories of history for that is just what history is: a story of a person, an event and of eras as fascinating as the people within.

It was not a giant leap to move from that school topic to delve into the history of the rose, the breeders, the growers and the people named by many a romantic breeder. In writing the book ‘Women in my Rose Garden’ became a natural movement from the girlhood love. Alas the mania continues. There were many women who fell by the wayside – their stories still to be told, there are the Chaps –‘Emperors, Generals and Gentle Men’ is underway and ‘The Roses of Myths Legends and Literature’ about to be launched on an unsuspecting public. The roses of Ken Nobbs proved to be an opportunity to reacquaint myself with New Zealand history as well as his family of roses.

The obsession with roses has itself evolved into an obsession to write about them. When we moved from a three acre garden with 1500 roses to a half-acre with just over a hundred there was some relief that the workload diminished but also sorrow at so many friends left behind.

So if I can’t work amongst them, have a stroll in the evening, glass of wine in hand with companionable husband beside me, talking to them, checking them out, smelling their fragrance and generally adoring their languor then I will write about them. Their beauty and their allure does not diminish because my hands are clean and my back straight. It just makes them more appealing.