Well...I appreciate all your responses, and I'm going to assume it's a common garter snake...for my OWN peace of mind...LOL I believe he was so grumpy because of the flash from the camera...it probably scared the bejeezus out of'm. Plus...I'm wondering if it isn't the onset of hibernation time. I mean, afterall, he WAS way down under some pretty hard, clay covered by about 4" of mulch. He was probably sleeping...or getting his last full meal of night crawlers when I uncovered him. *I'm in SE PA, not Florida at the moment. He's gone now and I don't know where...hehehe...but I covered the hole back up with the mulch. BTW: When I let Picture it! automatically tweak the color and brightness levels, the colors of the snake were changed a bit. Here are two pics showing actual color...

a crushed leaf... for a brief second or two.. might smell like rootbeer but sometimes not ... but all 3 will smell the same.. if the same.. rootbeer or not... ken

Yup, agreed on the ID. You could probably take cuttings a few nodes long & pot them back into mother plant's pot, to make it look even more full & lush.

Betina Forgot to mention: give it lots of light. It is leaning to one side - I suspect it was growing in relative dark spot and started to lean toward light source. It should start getting 'fatter' stems, darker green and rather upright. This one is same plant but monstrose - but growth pattern should be similar: