g on a gardening note................since we've FINALLY gotten a few days of hard frost here up on the ridge and back in Fairy Holler, my red castor bean plant has finally given up the mortal fibre that makes it live. The tender new leaves at the crooks of the older, more awesome inspiring leaves that were wonderous to behold and take pictures of have curled in upon themselves to give of themselves back to the soil as compost for future plants when I remove them.

The stems that were so succulent and burgundy red are now a deeper, blood red color more resemblent of liver and indicating that they too have succumbed to the days of thick frost and cold evening temperatures.

The silly Blue Egnima salvia is still blooming. And the Mexican sage that bloomed late seems frozen in time with it's fuzzy bright lavender blossoms.

Tomorrow on one of my split days off, despite rain or whatever Mom's Nature gives me, after a desperately needed sleep in and six days straight of flipping and flopping schedules, I will rise, view the day, plant the last Blue eyed muscari somewhere and survey the damage that the new puppers, Sméagol has done upon the western garden today while Squire was distracted fixing his laptop and I was at work and son was cleaning his room.

Sugar was obviously not the culprit, as her diggings go to Australia.....Smeagol's on the other hand are intense, energetically dug and random like a child's fleeting attention span.

I won't punish him, and he's probably done me a service...I will retuck the lily bulb back into the soil somewhere fitting, see if I can locate the roots of the former thriving Autumn fern (it was soooo happy.........sigh......) and scope out narrowing the too wide bed when I have more time to survey the potentials. There are plenty of residents in pots around the perimeters to fill any niches and holes if I need to, and I've always said that I planted way too many bulbs in that bed a few years ago........

The holes that were dug were like trenches, and since dirt dug up disappears magically, I will have to steal some of the finished compost at the bottom of the pile that I'd left untouched. Then, I'll get out some more of the wire for THIS new problem child and hope since he hates to be reprimanded, he'll return to excavating the driveway or digging up Jerry's yard across the shared driveway behind the fire thorns and privet.g

Sugar had her paw in some tempting diggings too. I found excavated boggy soil from the former bog garden that I planted variegated Japanese sedge into. Too heavy to lift, I will lay a wire over it too as I have plunged a great root of butterfly weed into the mucky depths to see if it can survive and return for me. If not, it will become compost fodder as well.

madgardener up on the wet and stormy ridge, back in Fairy Holler overlooking where English Mountain should be, in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36