Quite Contrary

All summer long, I whined and complained because grasshoppers ate all my flowers. The hibiscus I didn't know I had until late last summer finally is blooming like crazy, now that summer's almost over and chilly nights have decreased the literal hoardes of grasshoppers.

I think the hibiscus is trying to make up for what I've been missing all year long. She is LOADED with more buds! She's a very happy plant.

Now, if we can just hang onto Indian Summer a tiny bit longer...













All summer, I have waited and hoped for my first Icelandic poppies. Every time a bud did form, grasshoppers made quick work of it. Within hours. But now the nights are a bit cooler, and the swarms have disappeared; only a few stubborn hoppers are still chewing continually on my pampas grass and corn.

I'm trying to protect this tiny, half-marble-sized baby so it can grow up and stand tall.



My better half's hoya plant is at it again, too, so I'm surrounded with raspberry-hued petals, and loving every minute of it. The hoya had not bloomed since before The Lizard and I began dating, and then it wished us a happy anniversary in July with two gorgeous mini bouquets. After all those years of dearth, the hoya is showing her true colors.

If only I could figure out what exactly is making her so happy.







Ten of my 18 clove seedlings are still aiming to become trees. Like the hibiscus, the seedlings quite literally are fish out of water, hanging tough at an elevation of about 6,000 feet when they typically aren't found thriving too far above sea level.

Against all odds. What an inspiration! Now, if they can just hang onto their roots through winter.

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