Episode 26: Help My Hostas!

About This Episode

In this episode of Ask Grumpy, Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s
Grumpy Gardener, explains why hostas can look dead after a fall frost. Plus, Grumpy’s gripe ofthe week.

Question Of The Week

I love hostas. My whole yard is filled with them. The trouble is that after a fall frost, it looks dead. Any suggestions?

Grumpy Gardener Answer: You love hostas, but then they don't look like anything after a freeze. The answer is really simple. Plant something else with your hostas. There's lots of plants that look good with hostas, and so some of them are evergreen, so when your hostas die to the ground, you'll still have plenty of things out there to look at. Let me give you some suggestions:

1. Evergreen ferns, they do great with hostas. One of my favorites is autumn fern. It's evergreen, very easy to grow, hardy, and it obviously keeps its color year round.
2. Hellebores or lenten roses, they have very attractive dark green foliage, grow well in the shade, just like hostas, grow in the exact same places.
3. Native wild ginger, which has really pretty foliage, like, dark green and silver mottled foliage, and it is very easy to take care of for the shade.
4. Carex, it's actually technically a sage, but it looks like a grass and it has yellow foliage, and it's evergreen and it makes a nice, graceful mound that stays there all winter long, and it gets to be maybe 18 inches tall and wide.
5. Spanish bluebells is another great one that will give you color before the hostas are up, so you'll have something to look at beside just a bunch of dead hostas.
   

Grumpy's Gripe Of The Week

Ultrasonic Bug Repeller

My fraud of the week is called an ultrasonic bug repeller. And you'll see these things, and they show them putting out all of these microwaves and everything, and they say they chase away ants, they chase away spiders. Interesting that spiders don't have ears, so I don't know how they could chase away spiders. They say, mice and rats and squirrels.

Let me tell you, I had squirrels in my attic and I had three of these things blasting from every corner. Squirrels didn't notice it at all. So, we want to get rid of these pests, there are better ways to do it. You can trap squirrels, there's all sorts of different things. You can trap rats. You can put down insecticide if you want to keep the ants out, or you can put down ant traps, those are really easy to use. But these ultrasonic bug repellers, you're wasting your money, so don't fall for it. It may look really cool, but it's a total dud.

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.