Something has eaten several of my Hostas. I'm guessing slugs. I have only seen one grasshopper this year, but it could be them too. SO I got out the 7 Powder and dusted the heck out of everything.

Rick dug out the large Barberry bushes out front. One was dead and the other one was half gone. So I have to figure out what to put out there next spring. I'm definitely moving a couple Hostas. Thinking strongly about fescue grass clumps....anything easy!

I've talked to several ladies that have flowers either in the ground or in pots. We all experienced the same thing this year....Nothing grew "right". So we have come to the conclusion that everything we bought was started in the greenhouses way too early. By the time the plants are shipped out for sale they are already grown. The Coleus this year was already going to seed at the stores!  

The only plants that really did well were my Love-In-A-Puff vine, the alley Amaranths, and my Toothache Plants. The last two coming back on their own every year.

Next Spring I'll get pictures when I start replanting. That way everyone can see what I've done new.

Dorothy said it has cooled down in TX. We've had our first Frost warning here. Earlier we had another siege of rain that gave us over 5 inches in a week. Now all that grows is weeds.  

Oh I almost forgot to tell you about my visitor!!   I looked out my front window one sunny morning and there on my sidewalk was, what I called a "squirrel on steroids"!  I have never seen a creature like it.  At least a foot long with a thick, bushy tail almost as long as the body. He was at least three or four times as thick as a squirrel. He sat with his back to me so I couldn't see his face. I ran for my camera and when I got back to the window he was gone.  So I texted Rick at work and he immediately called me. He asked a fellow co-worker and his response was "Woodchuck". So I did some Internet surfing and found out that is also a Groundhog!!!  Now I know why my fountain next to the porch was always low on water and why the trailing leaves of my Sweet Potato Plants were gone. He had been living under our porch!!!!!!  It seems several people in and close to my block have spotted a creature like this. Is it the same one or several, no one knows. We haven't seen him for a while now. And my Sweet Potato Vine is growing new leaves. So I think he's moved on. And in all fairness, our end of town is very close to the creek, so I guess we were bound to have new visitors. So far we have had a fawn, moles, skunks, and now a groundhog. I wonder what's next.