Survival Mode

In Survival Mode, which is unlocked when Adventure Mode is beaten for the first time (which means getting the Silver Sunflower Trophy by beating Dr. Zomboss on the final roof level), the player must survive a certain number of waves of zombies. They get to choose new seed packets to defend against a different group of zombies, five in total, every one or two flags (depending on whether playing the normal or hard versions) to continue building up their defenses. For each group of zombies, the plants the player previously had on the lawn and their sun remain, but lawn mowers, pool cleaners, and roof cleaners are not renewed. At the end of the first completion of each Survival Mode level, a trophy is received with a diamond, and gold coins for any remaining lawn mower, pool cleaner or roof cleaner. Survival Mode does not appear in the iPod, iPhone, Nook, Android, and DSiWare versions and the iPad version does not include any of the hard levels. The normal modes last five flags, hard modes last ten flags, and Survival: Endless keeps going until the zombies reach the player's house.



Normal Modes: Day through Roof
In each of these modes the player must survive five flags of zombies, with a new group after each one. The zombie concentration is the same as in Adventure Mode levels, so these levels should be pretty easy. Zombies from other areas may show up in some cases. The hardest zombie the player should encounter is a Football Zombie.

Zombies

 * Zombie
 * Flag Zombie
 * Conehead Zombie
 * Pole Vaulting Zombie
 * Buckethead Zombie
 * Newspaper Zombie
 * Screen Door Zombie
 * Football Zombie
 * Dancing Zombie (except roof)
 * Backup Dancer (except roof)
 * Ducky Tube Zombie (pool and fog)
 * Snorkel Zombie (pool and fog)
 * Zomboni (fog and roof)
 * Dolphin Rider Zombie (fog only)
 * Jack-in-the-Box Zombie (fog and roof)
 * Balloon Zombie (fog and roof)
 * Digger Zombie (fog only)
 * Pogo Zombie (fog and roof)
 * Zombie Yeti (if previously encountered)
 * Ladder Zombie (fog and roof)
 * Catapult Zombie (fog and roof)
 * Trash Can Zombie (Nintendo DS, XBox Live Arcade, and PlayStation 3 versions only)

Hard Modes: Day (Hard) through Roof (Hard)
These levels, as the name states, are quite hard. This time, the player must survive ten flags, with the zombies changing every two flags. To win this, plants like the Twin Sunflower, Gatling Pea with Torchwood, Winter Melon, and Pumpkin are essential. As the groups are different every time the player plays a level, it is not possible to create a strategy based on exactly what was encountered. The player will probably want to have his or her Sunflowers inside Pumpkins in the back with a row of Split Peas, Spikerocks, or a pair of Gloom-shrooms (one on the second row from the bottom, and one on the second row from the top) if Digger Zombies come, or a row of Cacti if there are Balloon Zombies, although Cattails work much better for this purpose in Survival: Fog, Survival: Pool and Survival: Fog (Hard). Even when the player doesn't have any Balloon Zombies, he or she would quickly find out that Cattails are one of the best plants, and in both pool and fog levels, turn in to a must-have plant.

Blovers can also work, but the player has to pay extreme attention. Survival: Day (Hard) and Survival: Pool (Hard) should be the easiest, with Survival: Night (Hard) slightly more difficult, Survival: Roof (Hard) still harder, and the hardest being Survival: Fog (Hard), though this is subjective. Cob Cannons come in handy on these levels, as there will probably be Gargantuars at some point (usually after flags five and six), but they aren't necessary; instant kills such as Cherry Bombs, Jalapenos, and Squash should be sufficient. However, they make Survival: Roof (Hard) much less strenuous, and are very useful on Survival: Fog (Hard).

The Survival: Fog and Survival (Hard) levels also introduce a new Trash Can Zombie in the Xbox Live Arcade, PS3, DS version.

Survival: Endless
This time, the player attempts to survive as many waves of zombies as he/she can, choosing new seeds every two flags. At first, the zombie density is the same as in the Hard modes, but it quickly grows to over that of Column Like You See 'Em. In addition, upgrades for plants get progressively more expensive; for every upgrade plant that is on the screen, additional upgrade plants cost 50 more sun. Winter Melons and Pumpkins are essential here, and both Cob Cannon and Gloom-shrooms are a must in almost all builds. Instants are very good here, although not completely necessary with the Cob Cannons, and zombies come in such droves that playing a half-hour of this will earn the player maybe $20,000 or $30,000 if he or she only clicks half or a third of the coins, given that the player is at least fifteen waves in. The high number of zombies also has the effect of generating many diamonds in a short time; at its best a diamond may appear every four to five seconds.

Alternatively, (depending on preference) the player could use Potato Mines and Imitater Potato Mines combined with Cattails to hold the zombies back while you save up to go straight to Winter Melons, Cob Cannons or other powerful plants. This mode also introduces the Giga-gargantuar, a red-eyed version of the normal Gargantuar that takes four instants' worth of damage before finally going down, which means it has double the health compared to a Gargantuar.
 * Note: There can be more than one Survival: Endless by playing a Survival: Hard game and modifying the save file name, it is possible to create Survival: Day (Endless), Survival: Night (Endless) and others. However, these are only seen in the online version. Players can also play other Survival: Endless levels through the Limbo Page but on the PC only.

Online Version
In the online version, there is only one form of Survival Mode. It takes place at night and it is an endless mode. The player can only choose four plants and meets the Giga Football Zombie.

For more, see Survival: Night (Endless).

Levels
Some Survival levels are hidden in Limbo Page; there are: Via hacking, the player can also play Survival: Night Roof (Endless).
 * Survival: Day
 * Survival: Night
 * Survival: Pool
 * Survival: Fog
 * Survival: Roof
 * Survival: Day (Hard)
 * Survival: Night (Hard)
 * Survival: Pool (Hard)
 * Survival: Fog (Hard)
 * Survival: Roof (Hard)
 * Survival: Endless
 * Survival: Day (Endless)
 * Survival: Night (Endless)
 * Survival: Fog (Endless)
 * Survival: Roof (Endless)

Trivia

 * In Survival: Endless in Plants vs. Zombies (Nintendo DS), there is a mistake where it says Survival: Day (Endless); it should have said Survival: Pool (Endless).
 * In all Survival Modes, a Trash Can Zombie occasionally appears, but only in versions which include the Trash Can Zombie.
 * After completing nine of the ten survival levels, the music tune that is played after beating a level changes.
 * There is an error in the GOTY edition that during the seed selection on Survival: Roof, Survival: Roof (Hard) and Survival: Roof (Endless), the "View Lawn" button will still say "View Lawn" instead of "View Roof".
 * When the player dies and gets his/her brains eaten, instead of saying "GAME OVER", the losing message says "You survived (number of flags completed) flag(s) before dying a GRUESOME ZOMBIE DEATH!"
 * Zombie Bobsled Teams do not appear in Survival Mode, even though Zombonis leave ice trails.
 * Zomboni and Gargantuar (with Imp) only appear after completing four flags. They will not appear in three to four flags.
 * The Giga-gargantuar only start to appear after completing ten flags in Survival: Endless.