Harmful insects Plant diseases Staking plants

Just Get Rid of Problem Plants!

What to do when you have a recurring problem with a plant? One suffers from a disease or an insect every year? Or needs to be constantly cut back to keep it from overflowing the space provided? Or whose innumerable suckers invade your garden or flowerbed? Or that flops over if you don’t stake it?

The Same Problem Year After Year

If there is a good chance that you will have to deal with the same problem year after year, my suggestion is to yank out the culprit and compost it! With such a wide selection of plants currently on the market, there is no reason to endure “problem plants”. Better to change course and choose one that actually does what you want it to do! For example, you can replace a mildewed phlox with one of the new phloxes that are mildew-resistant. Or replace a hosta whose leaves look like Swiss cheese due to slug damage by one with thick foliage that molluscs avoid. Or a floppy peony by one that remains sturdily upright.

The Very First Gardening Rule

It took me a good two decades of fighting problem plants before I figured this one out, but once I got it, what a change it made in my gardening life! I went from being a struggling, frustrated gardener to a confident, laidback one. I still don’t understand why no other gardener ever shared this tip with me: it should be the very first gardening rule you ever give to a fellow gardener. Instead, every time I mentioned a plant problem, I was given a ridiculously ineffective home remedy that just made me more frustrated. Well, I have a “home remedy” that really works. Get rid of that damn plant: it doesn’t deserve to live!

It’s when you essentially grow only plants that really thrive in your conditions without recurring problems that’s you’ll finally realize just how easy gardening can be easy!

This text was first published on this blog on Nivember 11, 2014. It has been revised and the layout updated.

Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

10 comments on “Just Get Rid of Problem Plants!

  1. mochatrail

    Easier said than done ! If it’s doing really well and thriving perhaps even flowering I just can’t bring myself to kill em. I have culled plants overgrown in certain cases but it has given me nightmares of screaming/crying plants Guess I just have to make a quick hard cut and get it over with.

  2. marolynmagnolia

    Thank you so much. I love this article and laughed and laughed with relief because the answer is so simple. You see, I have a hard time killing any plant that I’ve planted. Now I don’t have to feel guilty!

  3. Lynn Hasney

    Great rule but i wouldnt mind flopping peonies if i could just grow them lol

  4. SANDY MARION

    That’s Rule #1. Rule #2: If the rabbits eat it, don’t grow it.

  5. This advice is good for indoor plants, too! Thank you!!!!!!

  6. Suzanne Armstrong

    If only it were so easy to get rid of problem weeds.

  7. Exactly! Euonymus so reliably gets powdery mildew here that we should not be growing it. There are a few species that nurseries should not even sell here.

  8. Thanks Matthieu, what a brilliant idea!

  9. Christine Lemieux

    I struggled in a similar fashion until I started reading Larry’s words and following his common sense approach. Although I still put up with my Sarah Bernhardt peonies that flop every year, and day lilies with leaf streak.

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