Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here today to talk about a change. You may remember me from such changed-related posts as “More Changes”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I’m gardening, if you couldn’t tell, and looking at something I thought was important to look at.
The guy I live with suggested that calling myself “your popular host” was getting to be a bit immodest, and suggested going back to the old introduction, so that’s what I did with today’s post.
Things are suddenly different around here, because we’ve gotten some rain. The guy I live with isn’t sure if it’s because of the monsoon, or El Niño or La Niña or what, but he said whatever, it rained. There was lots of very scary thunder, including a lightning strike that was way, way too close. I was safe in my Upstairs Fort at the time, but it still scared me.
Plants like Salvia greggii are suddenly coming into flower, if not in focus.
We still have zillions of grasshoppers, but they haven’t touched these. The guy I live with thought it might be because of terpenes, which can act as protection against the plants being eaten.
Like for instance, the grasshoppers totally devoured Salvia darcyi, but didn’t touch the plants of S. greggii, or plants with greggii in their genetics, growing right next to them.
Here’s a list of other plants, besides the euonymus I showed before and Salvia darcyi, that were devoured by grasshoppers. At least one is surprising.
Acanthus spinosus, Brunnera macrophylla, Allium senescens, Mentha longifolia, Fendlera rupicola (that’s the surprising one), Alcea rugosa, Lavatera (Malva), thuringiaca, and every echinops in the garden.
The grasshoppers also ate all the Geranium macrorrhizum growing in sun, but didn’t touch the ones growing in shade.
They also nibbled on a lot of plants, too, of course.
So today was the first day without any scary thunder for a while now. It sprinkled a tiny bit this morning, and the guy I live with decided to take all the new autumn-flowering crocuses back outside, now that it isn’t roasting hot.
All of a sudden he got very excited and would have danced a jig, except that he doesn’t dance, and there wasn’t any room for things like jigs.
This is why. We’re waiting for the inspector to come and look at the new breaker panel and stuff, so the big shelves were moved. You can see the other shelves at the extreme right of this picture, where the red compost bucket is. No room for dancing. 
Anyway, this is what made the guy I live with happy.
These are emerging flower stalks of Crocus suworowianus, a high-elevation crocus from Turkey. Maybe you remember me showing how these grow with the corms positioned on their sides. Even I know this is weird, but that’s how they grow.
The pots are covered with screen against the grasshoppers.
This is a species that doesn’t produce leaves until the following spring, so once the flowers are done the corms with be planted out in the garden. On their sides, of course.
I guess that’s all I have for today. There may have been something else, but if so, I’ve forgotten what it was.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Interesting that the grasshoppers didn’t bother the Geraniums in the shade. Do you know why that might be?
Since your last post I have been thinking about grasshoppers damaging Yucca rostrata. I have some young ones, and also a new-to-me, four foot tall Thompsons’s yucca, and I would really hate to see them damaged. But the grasshoppers are everywhere here, too. We’ve received just over a half-inch of rain in my area since August 6.
The guy I live with speculated that the geraniums in shade might have been more vigorous, and so more terpenes. The foliage certainly does have a smell to it, which the guy I live with likes a lot.
It could also be that the ones in sun are not pure G. macrorrhizum.
The screened cages seem to work, though there can’t be any way for the grasshoppers to get in, and ensuring that isn’t easy.
He sprayed some Garlic Barrier on the yucca, too. You can smell it all over the garden.
He saw a formula online: a gallon of fish emulsion fertilizer and 8 ounces of Garlic Barrier.
Imagine the smell of that…
Ew!
It must be worse for canine people, since you can smell so much more than human people can.
Thanks for the idea. I have just found the Garlic Barrier site and think I will try some. I have no doubt the fish emulsion would repel all manner of llving beings. That could come in handy some day—see, I’ve got this one neighbor…
You’re welcome. The guy I live with says you can smell Garlic Barrier 100 feet away, but it’s possible that it works.
He would have to try to take before and after pictures in order to be sure.
We have that one neighbor, too.
That’s a long list of devoured plants!
It is, but the list of plants left untouched is much, much longer.
The guy I live with said snow is sounding pretty nice right now. There was snow here on September 3, 1961.
The grasshoppers have been way too numerous in NW Denver too. Between them and the wasps, we feel like we’re in a Stephen King novel. Only a 90 second shower yesterday evening. I swear my neighborhood is under Ziggy’s umbrella. Here’s hoping there’s little thunder, Mani.
The guy I live with said the Stephen King business might extend to the weather forecasts. Today there was talk of “monsoonal moisture, slow-moving storms”, etc. He has a thing on his laptop that said “rain starting in 1.5 hours”, and his phone said rain, and absolutely nothing like that happened.
It did sprinkle here a little, but that was hardly what was predicted.
Yeah, I have that on my device as well. I think 12 tiny drops fell but that was it. 😬 it’d be nice if monsoonal rains would actually start. We could sure use the moisture.
The guy I live with got all excited when he saw the talk about “monsoon” stuff this morning, but nothing happened, except a few sprinkles.
He says it isn’t a true monsoon because it isn’t reliable like the Indian one.
We have had about an inch of rain since the first of August, here, but the guy I live with wants more.
Definitely worth dancing a jig over even if it was an internal gesture. Glad you got some rain and you survived the thunder. Some of those bangs can be quite alarming. August always seems to be a tough time for plants especially if you have had a dry summer. We finally got some rain but alas, it came with quarter sized hail that flattened a lot of stuff. Instead of looking at what the grasshoppers eat I am looking at what the hail left relatively unscathed.
That was the loudest thunder I’ve heard in a while. It was another disappointing “rain day” for us, in the second driest summer the guy I live with has ever seen (2002 was worse). They keep predicting rain and nothing happens.
He said he wouldn’t mind hail if it mashed some of the grasshoppers, but his neighbors have a vegetable garden in their frint yard and hail would be bad for that.
We just had our electric panel inspected too. Installed a second heat pump since the summers are getting hotter and the winters more unpredictable. With crocus on the way, maybe the grasshoppers are on their way out. Keep them protected until then anyway.
We’re still waiting for the inspection, which means the patio is kind of crowded.
The guy I live with said maybe we’ll have a whole-house swamp cooler installed later this year, or next spring. He did promise.
It’s supposed to be 90 degrees again for at least another week, though it’s nice and cool at night.
He made a special cage for the two crocus pots, using window screen, staples, and heavy rubber bands.
He also said he’s going to have to buy a lot more window screen, since he ordered more autumn-flowering bulbs today.