If my garden were music my neighbors would ask me to turn it down.

I have just finished watering, again, and the plants are just tumbling all over each other with such enth usiasm that I really don't want to come inside. I don't want this gardening season ever to end. And by the looks of things, it won't any time soon.

Okay, so I have made mistakes, the most glaring of which is I did not stake as diligently as I should have. I am paying the price for that folly right now. Never have I seen my plants achieve such size and vigor. The weather has a great deal to do with this rampant success, but let us not overlook the mountain of compost that has been produced and applied. There is much to be said in favor of manure, too.

As one lovely moves past its prime you need to get out there and deadhead. Isn't that such a harsh term? It doesn't seem like it would apply to plants does it? But it does, and you must.

Deadheading is the act of removing the spent bloom from the plant. The first benefit is to make your garden look a great deal neater than it did before. You will now be able to see the next plant that is coming into bloom. In my case the columbine needed to be removed so the really gorgeous asiatic lilies could be fully appreciated. The foxgloves are almost ready to be cut down. I know I am going to miss them from the depth of my soul, but, fickle woman that I am, the verbascum (mullein) "Bold Queen" is ready and willing to take their place.

This verbascum has seeded itself all over and I am actually grateful. I had no idea just how willing it would be to adapt to life in Homer and you need to know that this is a plant to hold dear to your heart. It has a white bloom with a plum eye progressing up a three foot spike. If I had deadheaded this as soon as it went to seed, I wouldn't have as many volunteers as I do. So, deadheading is a double-edged sword.

If you do not want your plants to re-seed, you need to get right out there and cut off the seed heads. If you do want them to re-seed and, hopefully, send up volunteers in the spring, than you can leave just a few seed heads to do the job. You don't need to leave all of the seed heads or you will end up with masses of, for instance, Sweet Williams. Lovely though they are they can invade your life if left to re-seed at will.

As for the annuals, you will want to be right on top of deadheading them because they will just fade away if you don't. Their whole purpose in life is to continue their line and the only way they can do that is to go to seed and die. If you want color from your annuals for as long as possible, deadhead. For instance, I am letting the viola, Frosted Penny, re-seed on the north side of the house. It is running rampant under the Haidee rose as I planned. I couldn't deadhead these if I wanted to, there are too many, the task would drive me insane. Instead, if you have an annual that has re-seeded with too much success, just treat it as a weed and cultivate it out.

I think the first round of deadheading is the most difficult. I am often reluctant to make the move because I feel like I waited so very long for something, anything, to happen, and when it finally does, what do I do? Go out and cut it down. But trust me, the garden is going to look so much better thanks to judicious use of your pruning shears.

I have made a discovery about myself. I have had a real need for double blooms for quite some time now. That need has been satisfied by the pink "peony" poppy. But now that the actual peonies are really producing, that need is sated. I had three big bouquets of peonies in the house at all times during the peony season. I am no longer going to plant these poppies. What a decision.

I think, for some reason that I can't explain, that poppies shouldn't be double. That they are just lovely in their original form, single. There is a mass of Shirley poppies in bloom right now and they just exquisite. There are so many poppies out there that I just may have to try a different one every year and work my way through their repertoire. I can hardly wait to be done with "peony" poppies.

This is the time of year for decisions like this. Take a good look around your garden and see what it is that you do and do not like. Make notes and don't repeat your mistakes.

Which is easier said than done. Here I am, yet again, with more tomatoes than is humanly possible for two people to eat. The real problem is that my greenhouse is too big. I think I have to fill it up. Four tomato plants are three too many, although we will keep a cherry going because they are fun to snack on while out in the garden and we will always and forever have a Brandywine. So that makes two. Enough. And why, oh why, do I plant two "English" cucumbers? Because they are delicious, but we do not need two plants. One is sufficient. I think that next year the plants that I will have in there will be really happy with how much room I am going to give them to move around. Should make us all happy.