Hi llilibel- I think the water will be fine to use. I can't help you with the grasshoppers but i would spray-wash off the rosemary and cut back the lavender- some kinds die back in the heat and will sprout again in spring. Min

1. use it. asap in case there are mosquito larvae in there. Standing water = mosquitos. :(

2. There's a bacterial product that will kill grasshoppers--can't remember the name. It only kills grasshoppers, doesn't affect anything else. Or go out just after sunrise with a scissors and cut their heads off. They move really slow early in the morning.

3. Take the hose and with a hard spray wash off the rosemary and see if that helps. Rosemary is one of the toughest plants there is. You can always trim off the ugly bits.

4. Dried out? Give it a single deep soak and wait. If it recovers you can cut it back by about one third to make it look better. Do not cut all the way down into old, dried bare stems as they will not sprout new growth.

In the rosemary, is it foamy looking? If so, could be spittlebugs.

Thanks for the replies. We had the spittle bug problem, too. Took them off one by one. We also catch the grasshoppers when we can. Our neighbor has a huge compost pile in the front of his house so we release the critters there.

I read about some methods and products to kill grasshoppers but they will generally also kill crickets and we love the sound of crickets in our yard in the evening.