Nancy and I had two couples over for dinner Saturday night, and the conversation turned to paperwhites.

Fall foliage season is in full swing -- not only in the forests but in our own back yard.

Nancy and I have been really pleased with the way our hostas have been doing this year.

During a rare dry day or two, Nancy took her camera out in the yard over the weekend.

Lots of new blooms and Nancy has been busy with the camera.

Nancy toured the garden with her camera over the past couple of days.

The camera is back and the garden needs it

People are always asking when tender plants should go outside.

Those bright lavender shrubs that are appearing everywhere in southern Maine are PJM rhododendrons.

More blooms are coming out every day.

Spring is coming faster than usual. I have sound proof.

Although we have not yet had a frost, we have been cleaning up our flower beds. The daylilies and hosta have mostly been cut back.

It seems my whole life lately is spent deadheading: phlox and echinacea and daylily and hosta scapes and all sorts of flowers that have gone by.

Nancy cut the first gladioluses – gladioli? – of the season yesterday, brought them inside and they looked good.

In my last posting, I talked about the smokebush – but looking at the end result the smokebush was pretty well hidden. Here Nancy has taken a picture that better shows off the small tree.

The flower garden has entered the summer stage, with not so many flowers as the spring but still a decent amount of bloom.

I was away for the weekend and it has been too soggy to get to the garden since I have been back, so I have not had much to report. But I did get out this morning.

Our James Macfarlane lilac was in full bloom all weekend long, standing sentinel over our garden. While our common lilacs have gone by, James is still big and beautiful.

There are a number of other lilacs that bloom later than the common lilac, and they are a great choice if you want to extend the lilac season

Nancy came up with some azalea names in the photo of the previous posting. The red orange azalea is 'Gibraltar,' the yellow orange is 'Klondyke,' the pale yellow to the left is 'Toucan' while the pale yellow to the right was an unnamed Knapp Hill variety. The short red azalea in front is something with Hino Crimson in its name.

Our azaleas were the bright spot of a gray weekend. We have about six of them in a corner of the back yard, under an old apple tree.

Our arabis, common name rockcress, although Nancy never calls it that, has brightened my morning for the past three weeks.