Cutting of climber almost strangled by my flowering bush (9)
I believe the answer is:
corrosive
'cutting' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'climber almost strangled by my flowering bush' is the wordplay.
'climber' becomes 'ivy' (ivy is a climbing plant).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (almost the whole word is kept).
'strangled by' indicates putting letters inside (I've seen this in other clues).
'my' becomes 'cor' (both are expressions of surprise).
'flowering bush' becomes 'rose' (rose is a kind of bush. I am not sure about the 'flowering' bit.).
'ivy' with its final letter removed is 'iv'.
'cor'+'rose'='corrose'
'iv' going within 'corrose' is 'CORROSIVE'.
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for corrosive that I've seen before include "Able to eat away" , "Hurtful" , "Caustic and destructive" , "Destroying by chemical action" , "Caustic, erosive" .)