A bad time of year to be a bad dog.

I love our grandpuppy. But the key word here is "puppy" - she's got a full grown dog's body and a puppy's lack of impulse control.

Which explains some carpet stains.

And this.

As bad as this looks, it looked much worse when we first discovered the carnage.

So what do you do when a container goes kaput in late summer?  It's too late to buy duplicate replacements, especially if they were part of a set, like this one was.

This late in the year, the pickins are slim indeed.  If we lived farther north, I'd just call the planter done for the season and put some pansies in it to enjoy through the weeks of fall.  But we live in an area that won't see 30-degree temperatures for another 6-8 weeks.  Pansies won't even be available for another month around here, and my motto is "leave no container unplanted," especially since we don't have much in the way of borders or vegetable garden this year.

Fortunately one of our garden centers still had a decent selection of annuals, including some coleus and begonias, making it easy to make do.  Since the begonias were in a four-pack, I inserted the others in a few other blank spots in the deck containers to try to tie the whole thing together, gave some remaining plants a haircut and fertilized and watered everything.

Now I'm just hoping the dog will leave this one alone and let it grow until the first frost does it in, sometime late in October.  Be good, sweet Sadie.

Happy planting,