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Cutting yellow parts of garden plants off?

Should I cut the yellow parts of my garden plants off so they grow better?

Public Comments

1. If they're diseased, probably. If they're just getting shaded out and dying because they're no longer useful to the plant, don't unless it really bothers you. Plants have the ability to scavenge out important nutrients from leaves before they discard them -- that's why they turn yellow, as the magnesium in the chlorophyll is scavenged, along with other nutrients. By cutting off yellowing leaves, you're interrupting that process. In fact, in a study of "tidying up perennials" in the fall by cutting them back, the authors found that plants that had dead leaves left on over winter outgrew their tidied-up counterparts -- even though to human eyes, nothing was going on, apparently something *is* still going on in the plant. Diseased material, though, is often better cut off. Sometimes you can stop the spread of some leaf diseases that way.
2. Some shrubs will have yellow verigation or yellow leaves. Make sure its an actual problem before you cut it off, it may be how the plant is supposed to look.