How To Kill A Plant

By Phran Novelli

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - How can I kill this thing? No matter how much you love plants, most of us end up with something in our garden now and then that we want to get rid of - like a prickly bush, or some weedy Norway Maple that seeds in under a shrub and by the time you see it sticking up, you've got a deeply-rooted problem on your hands. Cut it down and it can send up suckers for years.

Chemicals can be nasty for people, pets and nearby plants – and digging's hard while a plant's alive. So, put a shroud over it!

I lop the doomed plant down, pull a thick black plastic garbage bag over it and tie it. Then, just wait. With the sun blocked, the leaves can't live. The black bag absorbs heat and bakes the plant too so, as the weeks go by, the plant will die. Perfect for those out of the way places, but in a prominent spot, you can always turn a giant planter upside down over the bag and arrange some pretty potted plants on that to hide the death and destruction going on inside.