Almost forgot: I also have 3 nandina domestica (moon bay nandinas) that dont look great. Nandinas when first planted: http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee189/bugman74/CIMG2256.jpg Nandina's 2/2009 (these were never pruned): http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee189/bugman74/CIMG2957.jpg Nandina's last month: http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee189/bugman74/CIMG3326.jpg The one closes to the water spicket looks OK, the others dropped a lot of leaves, and are still red'ish... Ideas?

If you can find gulf stream nandina it will stay shorter than the standard domestica nandina and still give you great color for the winter season. If you choose to go with the standard nandina domestica learn to prune by taking out the tallest stalk a few inches from ground level and the tallest one the next year the same way. Never prune by topping like a boxwood or dwarf burford holly would be pruned. By learning this unique to nandina pruning technique you will retain a smaller overall height but keep the bushiness that you will want to hide the untility box. Good luck whatever you choose and... Happy Growing David

"Need to identify cause of defoliation before knowing how best to proceed." Not sure that is absolutely essential. Winter dieback could have caused it. And species Nandina domestica typically produces 'bare legs', more so on old well established ones, resulting in just tufts of foliage on the top of long, spindly looking canes. Even if bothered by mildew, pruning out the bare, dead or diseased older canes will still help to rejuvenate the plant.

once you kill it with a stump killer.. i have no idea why you would need to dig it out ... just leave the dead wood there ... if you want to plant something else.. just move away from the gob of deadwood ...where you can dig in soil ... and btw ... round up as a stump killer is undiluted ... none of that pre mix stuff ... ken