The Rembis Report and Other Fascinating Topics - Volume XCV

Now, I am growing sunflowers.

Once again, technically, they are growing themselves. Well, to be clear, I think it is a sunflower. I might be wrong. It could be a weed. But whatever it is I am not cutting it down because it is a pretty little yellow flower.

It sprouted right underneath the bird feeder, which is filled with black sunflower seeds. These are supposed to be the seeds most birds enjoy, and as far as bird seeds go, this batch does not prove to be as popular among our neighborhood and migrating birds as the kind with several seed varieties, so they don’t go through it as fast. I will get a different bag of bird seed next time, but this is not about the birds today, it is about the birdseed, specifically, the sunflower seed that sprouted.

It just showed up. A single seed obviously fell to the ground and germinated and now it is half a foot tall. I am really excited about it because sunflowers are so pretty. I would love to have one growing right out front next to the bird feeder. So, I will give it a little time and watch it grow. If it is a weed and not a sunflower, so what? Let it dream about being a sunflower if it wants.

It was born here.

On the other side of the yard other new natives have made an appearance. Grasshoppers. Black Lubber Grasshoppers, to be specific. The big ones who can’t fly, don’t jump so far, and sort of just walk around slowly like a big guy leaving the buffet. Because they are always at the buffet. They are eating the garden.

They were born here too. I was just as happy to see them as I was to see the sunflower (or the weed that might be a sunflower). A whole bunch of them hatched one morning and there they were, all hanging out together atop the aloe. They are cute little black bugs with yellow racing stripes. Kind of cool. Food for the anoles. I saw an anole eating one and none of the other grasshoppers came to the rescue. They just let it happen. I also did not intervene. I was surprised because I read that they did not taste good. Maybe lizards don’t know until they try one, then they say “Never again. Once is enough.” Like when you try kale. I am just guessing.

I would not takes sides because what grasshoppers and anoles do on their own turf is really none of my business. I stay out of it. If they decide to kill each other or live in harmony, I have no say in the matter. I am just the reporter.

But it is my garden, so I should have some sense of defense when it comes to predatory insects who may eat it. Yet, I don’t want to hurt them. They have done nothing wrong. They are being themselves, living their best lives, doing what grasshoppers do; eat plants.

The fact that I consider these plants mine is something the grasshoppers and all others who live in the garden do not care about. The only sense of territory they have is their immediate vicinity. If I happen to be standing nearby they don’t care. If I were able to tell them that those plants were mine and that they should not eat them I am sure they would have a lot of questions about what makes those plants mine and not ours, or theirs. How is it that I am able to lay claim to the garden where they were born?

I am glad that I can’t have such discussions with bugs because I am not sure I could win this argument. While I could say that I was here first, they could say “Look, man, we have lived here our whole lives and you just showed up out of nowhere.”

“I was probably in the house, or at work, or out grocery shopping, or getting gas, or washing my car when you were born. So you didn’t see me right away, but trust me. I own this garden and the house right over here.”

“Okay, you stay in the house and we will stay in the garden.”

“But I can’t have you eating my gardenia bush.”

“Why not?”

“Because I love it.”

“We love it too. It is delicious.”

“Okay, you are not getting my point. You have got to go.”

“Go where?”

And this is where my argument collapses.

Do I have more rights than the grasshoppers just because I am bigger and more deadly than they are? Is their demise the only way to save my pretty gardenia bush?

Many gardeners would grant no mercy, crushing them without hesitation. Others take the diabolical route of poison. But when you poison the bugs, the birds and lizards who would eat them get gypped out of a meal, or die themselves from eating poisoned bugs. That’s a lose lose for everybody. There has to be a way to give them a choice to stay or go, a fighting chance, so to speak.

So, I scoured the internet for solutions in dealing with the little invaders who did not know they were invading, and found solutions that did not involve poison. Most advice for staying away from poisons is meant to help maintain flowers for pollinators like bees and butterflies. Some advice is simply cruel. There are ways to target grasshoppers with dust that will effectively glue their mouths shut and starve them to death. I wouldn’t want to do that to anybody. That is just plain mean and sick. I would not want that to happen to me if I was considered a pest in the wrong place. There had to be something more humane.

One website advised spraying the garden with a 50/50 water/vinegar mix. It would not harm the plants and would basically annoy the grasshoppers and make them want to leave. I think I tried this years ago with some other plants so I decided that this would be the best plan of action for our garden.

I gently shook the gardenia bush and about a half dozen grasshoppers fell off. I got the spray bottle out and shot the branches and leaves, but not the flowers and buds. I did not spray the grasshoppers directly because that would be rude. Nobody likes to get sprayed with vinegar. I did the same thing with the desert rose. The grasshoppers lumbered back to the other end of the garden where I left everything else alone because it is basically just wildflowers (weeds) mixed in with the aloe. I don’t want to destroy the grasshoppers, I just don’t want them to destroy my gardenia.

I raised that gardenia from a twig.

About ten years ago, there was a gardenia bush growing on the other side of the fence in our neighbor’s yard, and this one sprout came up on our side of the fence, right next to the sidewalk, and a flower bloomed. It was alone and out of place. I could have cut it down and forgot all about it, but instead, I dug it up, put it in a pot and took care of it. Now that bush is taller than me and blooms every year. It outgrew the pot and is now a permanent resident in the garden. the plant it came from died years ago. If you don’t know what gardenias smell like, please go out and find a bush and take a whiff. They have a gorgeous scent, like vanilla and butter, and taking in a breath reminds me of fresh pastries.

After spraying the vinegar, I went out the next day to find fewer grasshoppers on the gardenia bush. They were bigger and maybe more vinegar resistant than their buddies. So, I shook them off and sprayed it again.

The next day, there were even fewer grasshoppers and none of them were hanging out on the gardenia. They were all over at the other end with the aloe and wildflowers.

They’re weeds, Mike.

This is my story and if I want to call them wildflowers, they’re wildflowers!

Please continue. Tell us more about your “wildflowers.”

In my search for gardening advice I came across this essay I want to share with you. It was just the perspective I needed to accept what is happening at ground level and eased my worries for the future of the garden. I think it is nice.

Change will always occur, whether I am standing there looking at the garden or not. I am not Mother Nature, merely another inhabitant of Earth, like the birds, lizards, insects, and plants. Whatever she has in store for all of us is what will happen. Placing a deed of ownership on any part of the world makes less sense when I imagine it on a grand scale. I can no more say that the town I was born in, miles and miles away, across the ocean, belongs to me, than grasshoppers can claim my garden to be their own. But the Earth, as a whole, is ours. I recall that again as I write this on Earth Day.

It makes me think about anyone who considers the place of their birth as their own. Nobody has any control over where they are born. Does it make sense for them to have greater allegiance to that piece of land than any other just because they were born there? For a lot of people it does. When you look around it seems that almost everybody feels this way about the place they were born, but for some people, when they see trespassers giving birth on what they consider their land, they may not identify that offspring as a native.

It is a fierce debate. The American Legion has been running this poll since 2011. Click on the link to cast your vote and see the results. You may immediately cancel your vote so as not to skew results.

I don’t know that I am surprised at the results, but I am not with the majority on this one. I obviously see this from an American perspective, but lots of other countries deny entry to refugees and have different rules, too. Some pregnant women aim to have children in countries like the United States as a pathway to their own citizenship. For that reason, the strategy behind anchor babies makes sense.

For a clear sense of both sides of the argument, the Federalist Society offers these opposing perspectives on birthright citizenship which make valid points for and against the issue.

Like I said, nobody has any control over where they are born, and children have no control on where their parents take them, especially when they are babies. Enter the DREAMers, illegal aliens who grow up in the USA. Deporting them to what they consider a foreign land makes little sense. Most have no ties to where they were born and know only the ways of the USA, and become fully integrated as citizens, even though they may not reside as legal citizens. But once they spend enough time in the states they should be considered citizens. Some do not even speak the language of the place they were born and would have no support system there if deported. They would be completely homeless.

Back in the garden it is a madhouse. Only the biggest of the grasshoppers are left. And they have cannibalistic tendencies. I found this half of a grasshopper that had been standing its ground when it died, its massive hind legs still clinging to the aloe while it was killed and devoured. This was his place. He protected his territory with his life.

The territory remains for whoever else shows up.

I only saw five grasshoppers yesterday and they were all quite large. I suppose many of the others died. With the hazards of bigger, more lethal grasshoppers, hungry lizards and birds, crazy humans spraying noxious solvents, why would anybody want to stick around with all that insanity going on? I don’t blame them for leaving to find something better, and staying where they finally feel safe.

Maybe they are heading towards the sunflower.

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.