What's Wrong With My Azaleas? Grumpy Explains

About This Episode

What happens if a squirrel makes a nest in an azalea? Plus, Grumpy's gripe of the week.

Question Of The Week

"A squirrel just used the branches of our Encore Azalea to make a nest. He cut it down to a stump. If we spray our other Encores with hot pepper wax, will it save them from a similar fate?" - Nancy

Grumpy's response: Okay, first of all, let's establish what hot pepper wax is. It is a product that you use as a repellent for problem animals that do damage to your plant. And it uses the chemical in hot pepper, which is capsaicin, that makes your mouth burn so much when you're eating a habanero pepper, right? And it blends that with this type of wax, and so when you spray it on, it lasts a long time on the plant. And then when something like a squirrel comes along and bites off a branch, it burns up his mouth and hopefully sends him somewhere else. So that's what hot pepper wax is, and you can do that at most, garden centers and home centers. It's easy to find. Now, you think this is a weird occurrence? You've never heard of using azaleas for a nest for squirrels?

Gripe Of The Week

My gripe is about one of the dumbest products I've seen them come out with. Do you know what a Roomba is? My cats like to kind of chase it around and gaze at it, but...A Roomba is this little programmable, circular, robot that zooms around the house. And it has a GPS system that you can link up to your cellphone so you can tell it what to do and see where it's going. And you turn it on, and it uses, I guess it's this kind of sonar or whatever, but it can tell where things are around your room so it doesn't constantly smash into walls and everything. And it puts together this little digital map inside its brain of the room.

And it goes over every bit of carpet and collects all the dirt and debris and stuff like that, and so you don't have to do it. So they came out, and they said, "Wow, that's really cool. Could we just do that for the lawn?" So believe it or not, now they've got these robots that do the same thing but instead of picking up dirt, they cut grass. There's a whole lotta different varieties and brands. I'm just gonna call them, lump them all into something called a Groomba, okay?

About Ask Grumpy

Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 30 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.