diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt
index e459c854dfab9..ef189697ae27f 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.0.txt
@@ -765,7 +765,7 @@ Bug Fixes
 - Bug in ``.read_csv()`` with ``parse_dates`` when multiline headers are specified (:issue:`15376`)
 - Bug in ``groupby.transform()`` that would coerce the resultant dtypes back to the original (:issue:`10972`, :issue:`11444`)
 
-- Bug in ``DataFrame.hist`` where ``plt.tight_layout`` caused an ``AttributeError``  (use ``matplotlib >= 0.2.0``) (:issue:`9351`)
+- Bug in ``DataFrame.hist`` where ``plt.tight_layout`` caused an ``AttributeError`` (:issue:`9351`)
 - Bug in ``DataFrame.boxplot`` where ``fontsize`` was not applied to the tick labels on both axes (:issue:`15108`)
 - Bug in ``Series.replace`` and ``DataFrame.replace`` which failed on empty replacement dicts (:issue:`15289`)
 - Bug in ``pd.melt()`` where passing a tuple value for ``value_vars`` caused a ``TypeError`` (:issue:`15348`)
diff --git a/pandas/tests/plotting/test_hist_method.py b/pandas/tests/plotting/test_hist_method.py
index 22de7055e3cea..c58856e37abf7 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/plotting/test_hist_method.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/plotting/test_hist_method.py
@@ -241,12 +241,11 @@ def test_hist_layout(self):
     @slow
     # GH 9351
     def test_tight_layout(self):
-        if self.mpl_ge_2_0_0:
-            df = DataFrame(randn(100, 2))
-            _check_plot_works(df.hist)
-            self.plt.tight_layout()
+        df = DataFrame(randn(100, 3))
+        _check_plot_works(df.hist)
+        self.plt.tight_layout()
 
-            tm.close()
+        tm.close()
 
 
 @tm.mplskip
diff --git a/pandas/tools/plotting.py b/pandas/tools/plotting.py
index d46c38c117445..5325d6ca88575 100644
--- a/pandas/tools/plotting.py
+++ b/pandas/tools/plotting.py
@@ -3457,7 +3457,7 @@ def _subplots(naxes=None, sharex=False, sharey=False, squeeze=True,
 
     if naxes != nplots:
         for ax in axarr[naxes:]:
-            ax.set_visible(False)
+            ax.axis('off')
 
     _handle_shared_axes(axarr, nplots, naxes, nrows, ncols, sharex, sharey)