Before I begin, please note that this guide would make some references to my survival endless lawn's setup. Here are some screenshots so it's easy to know what I am referring to.


I reached 244 flags before I thought about laddering. There were multiple pumpkins to be replaced most of the time.


My first survival endless lawn was destroyed during a laddering attempt. I restarted from scratch. This is the result of laddering my second survival endless lawn. Pumpkin maintenance was reduced. So, I did not need much sun. Therefore, I replaced two twin sunflowers with an ice shroom and a coin magnet.





I found it tricky. I failed many times before succeeding in upgrading my lawn from the first screenshot into the second screenshot. Here are the lessons I learned.

1) Suitable upcoming horde:



This is easiest when it is just ladder zombies with other manageable zombies, and none of the dangerous ones. I had to wait many many flags for the right combination of zombies. Jack in a box, giga-gargantuars and zombonis are nasty. The dancing zombies aren't ideal but they're acceptable. Normal gargantuars are tricky as well. The rest are alright.

2) Plenty of suns in stock:

Laddering involves digging up some plants, letting some plants get eaten, using wallnuts and tallnuts and bombs and blovers, and an expensive rebuilding process to deal with giga gargantuars and zombonis later - possibly in the very next flag.

Before my first laddering attempt, I had 9k suns ready. After the laddering attempt, I was down by 3k to 6k suns. For my final laddering attempt (only lane 6 was not laddered), it didn't matter as much, because I had 7 cob cannons standing by.

3) Columns 2-4 must be ready:

These are the columns that imps will be thrown onto. These plants must be upgraded and have pumpkins to be ready for ladders. If there aren't any digger zombies, you can leave one or both gloom shrooms asleep and wake them up after you're done laddering. After laddering, you cannot upgrade or replace these plants or pumpkins. Otherwise, the ladders will disappear and your efforts will be wasted.

1) Disable plants that endanger ladder zombies.

I temporarily removed my pool cattails and melons in the leftmost column. If there are any balloon zombies, I used blovers temporarily. Even the gloom shrooms in column 2 - I replaced one of them with a sleeping one - and wake them up only after laddering is complete.

2) Stall some zombies

I used wallnuts and tallnuts and imitation pumpkins to feed the other zombies (especially football/metal bucket zombies) while waiting for ladder zombies. These zombies help to protect the ladder zombies - they absorb the damage from the melons.

3) Use garlic to redirect zombies.

My pool gloom shrooms kill really quickly. I didn't want to remove them unnecessarily because they're expensive to replace. So I used garlic in the rightmost column to move zombies from the 2nd/5th lane to the 1st/6th lane. Then I used another garlic in column 5 to move zombies back to 2nd/5th lane in order to move ladder zombies to these lanes.

4) Removed cobs and nuts when ladder zombies arrive

So the ladder zombies can reach their destination faster.


1) Just-in-time pumpkin replacements in columns 2-4

It is okay if some football and bucket zombies ate the pumpkins in columns 2-4 halfway. Replace these pumpkins the second the ladder zombies reach them. So they look great when laddered permanently. Elsewhere in the lawn, use imitation pumpkins so that the main pumpkins are not in cool down and are ready for this.


2) Maintain the rest of the lawn

If you see the catapult zombie start moving across your lawn, it is time to use either cob, squash, cherry bomb, or spikeweed on them. In lanes and areas that you're not working on laddering, kill the zombies. Minimize unnecessary plant destruction.


3) About explosives

Avoid using jalapenos in laddered lanes. Do not use cob, squash, or cherry bombs near the laddered areas. These explosives remove ladders.


4) Defend your last column

If you have finished laddering, and there are many football zombies in the last column - near your house, you have a few options to use: ice shrooms, tallnuts, wallnuts or pumpkins - these plants will give your gloom shrooms time to kill the zombies.



1) Inner lanes first

The zombies need to walk through lanes 1 & 6 to be safe from the pool gloom shrooms. After inner lanes 2 & 5 are laddered, then remove the garlic in column 5. Start rebuilding cobs on the inner lanes and focus on laddering outer lanes 1 & 6.

2) One section at a time

Doing the just-in-time replacements require a lot of focus. Zombies are still all over the lawn and some cobs were removed to allow ladder zombies to move to target. Plus, some plants have long cooldowns and there is the threat of dangerous zombies in the next flag.

It was difficult to work on both upper section (lanes 1&2) and lower section (lanes 5&6) at the same time. So i focused on one section at a time. I had the ladders in lanes 1 & 2 done by flag 78, lane 5 by flag 112, and lane 6 by flag 139.

My initial flag 300+ lawn that was destroyed - one of the reasons it failed was because it struggled to handle the very next flag after I fully laddered my lawn. This is why I played it safe by focusing on one section at time when I worked on my second lawn. So, there's always a minimum of 6 cob cannons available in the following flags. This requires patience.



Once you're done laddering, you need to rebuild quickly to prepare for the next flags. You might be low on cobs, suns, and possibly other ignored plants while you were busy laddering. Be careful especially if you encounter many dangerous zombies like giga gargantuars, zombonis and jack in a box.

Whenever I messed up - in the middle of the laddering attempt or if I accidentally cobbed away my ladders, I reload the save before the flags are completed.

This means I press Esc on my keyboard, then I click on Restart Level, and then click Restart, and after it shows the brand new lawn, I click on Menu and go to Main Menu. Now, when I go back to Survival > Survival: Endless and click Continue, I am back to just before the flag for laddering.

Otherwise, the failing lawn will be saved and reloaded later.

I wish I knew this earlier. I had to let go of my first flag 300+ lawn because back then, I thought the zombies had to eat my brain to reload the save. The game moved on while a zombie remained on my lawn and my brain remained uneaten. The game saved my failed, empty lawn.

Many thanks go to the people who contributed to the Plants vs Zombies wiki.

I definitely did not think of laddering until I saw it there.

My lawn's setup (as shown in the background info screenshot) is based on making small adjustments to the traditional 8 cob strategy shown in the wiki.

Enjoy your attempt at laddering! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or feedback!