Nothing Kills Nandinas, According To The Grumpy Gardener

About This Episode

The Grumpy Gardener answers a reader’s question on how to grow and care for nandinas. Plus, Grumpy’s gripe of the week.

Question Of The Week

"For the first time, the deer literally stripped my four foot Nandinas last winter. All that's left are upright sticks. Should I leave them alone or cut them to the ground? Will they come back?" - Vicky

Grumpy's Answer

Well, the good news is, nothing kills Nandinas, so they will come back. You can either wait for them to leaf out on their own, or, if they look really messed up now, you can cut them back to any height that you want, and they'll grow back. This ability to keep growing back no matter what makes people either love Nandinas or hate them. So I guess you're of the former camp. Now, to avoid a repeat of this dastardly deer attack, one thing you can do is avoid smearing the stems with salted caramel. Deers love salted caramel.

Gripe Of The Week

And I've said this before when you're looking for garden information on the internet, you really do have to question the source, because some of these people are just writing for clicks because they figure you won't know the difference, so they can tell you anything. Now, before I had talked about the suggestion that you could keep termites from eating your house by sprinkling cinnamon around the foundation. Yeah!

Spiders are actually a very beneficial part of the ecosystem, because they eat lots and lots of bugs. And there's very few of them that pose any threat to people. There's only two venomous spiders that we have in the Southeast. That's the black widow and the brown recluse, which most people will never run into. But anyway, they said if you wanted to keep spiders from coming into your house, you should plant citronella plants all around the foundation of your plants, because citronella, you know, that has all that lemon oil.

And it chases away mosquitoes, so obviously if it chases away mosquitoes, it'll chase away spiders. Well, see, here's a couple problems with that. Most of the spiders that you see indoors like the aptly named and harmless house spider, they spend their entire lives inside somebody's house. They're born there, or they hatch out there, if you prefer. They reproduce there, and they die there. They never go outdoors because they don't like it outdoors. It's wet and it's cold and they prefer to live in your house. What do they do while they're in your house? Well they eat other bugs that maybe you don't like as much as them. They eat cockroaches and all those other creepy crawlies and flies and things like that inside your house. So they do perform a very beneficial function. So, if you still hate having spiders in your house, there's other products that you can use, and you know what they are. All the bug sprays. But planting citronella around the outside of your house is just plain stupid. Don't be like that.

About Ask Grumpy

Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 20 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.