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Sedum is a popular flowering plant for shrub and flower beds. At a distance, some cultivars of sedum may be mistaken for myrtle spurge.

Courtesy Meredith Seaver, USU Extension

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Myrtle spurge is a toxic plant that should be eliminated from landscapes. Contact with the sap of this plant can cause irritation, blistering and burns, so gloves, long pants and long sleeves should be worn when removing the plants.

Courtesy Meredith Seaver, USU Extension

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For the best flavor and longest storage, winter squash should be fully colored, with hard, dry stems. The squash in this photo with greenish coloring or soft stems will have a bland flavor and a short shelf life.

Courtesy Meredith Seaver, USU Extension

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I had someone visiting my new yard today and they pointed out a plant in a shrub bed that they said was toxic. They said I should put on gloves and tear it out right away. Can you tell me what this plant is?

Your visitor probably mistook this plant for myrtle spurge, an herbaceous perennial (herbaceous means it dies back each winter) with fleshy stems and leaves. The light-green to grayish-blue leaves of myrtle spurge surround the stems in a spiral pattern. The reason your visitor was concerned is because myrtle spurge is toxic if ingested. The irritating, milky sap can be a problem for hikers, children and pets that encounter the plant because it can cause severe blistering on skin.

The perennial in your photo looks more like one of the upright cultivars of stonecrop sedum, a flowering herbaceous plant that is used in flower and shrub beds to add color and attract pollinator insects. This sedum’s fleshy leaves and somewhat spiraled leaf attachment make it easy to confuse it with myrtle spurge if you don’t look beyond your first impression. The margins of myrtle spurge leaves are smooth, and the leaves come to a sharp point at the end. Your photo is a bit out of focus, but the leaves look like they are serrated (toothed). The tips of the leaves seem a little blunted.

This is a good example of the importance of identifying plants correctly before doing something drastic.

When trying to identify an unfamiliar plant, there are many features to consider.

• The growth habit of the plant: woody or herbaceous (dies back at the end of each season), biennial (lives two years) or annual.
• The shape of the leaves and the pattern of their attachment to stems or branches.
• The color, thickness and texture of the leaves.
• The shape along the edges of the leaves (the leaf margins).
• The size, shape, color, arrangement and season of any flowers on the plant.

Another thing we can take away from this is the importance of waiting and watching for several months if you’re in a new home with an unfamiliar landscape. Give a new yard time to reveal its hidden bulbs, flowering plants, etc. before making big changes. Once you know what you’ve got, you can safely make changes without damaging plants you would have chosen to keep.

I am just trying to figure out how to tell if my butternut squash on the vein are done. I have several large butternuts that are on the vine but can see there are little ones trying to grow. Do I need to take the large ones off so the little ones will grow, or do I leave them all? The same with pumpkins. I have one sugar sweet pumpkin that looks done but am unsure how to tell and if I should just leave it.

Leave the large butternuts on the vine to continue maturing. As the weather cools off, most of the smaller fruits probably won’t be mature before the first frost, so there is no point in trying to “help” them. You can leave the little ones on, or you can start pinching off any new fruits that set from now on.

Winter squash should be fully colored for their variety, with no green patches or streaks on the rind. Their stems should be hard and dry — too firm to scratch if you try to press your thumbnail into the base of the stem. You shouldn’t be able to scratch the rind with your fingernail. You’ll probably also notice that the vine has begun to die back.

You can safely leave the squash and pumpkins on the vines until the first light frost.

For best storage life, keep the stems attached to winter squash. Use pruners to cut your butternuts free from the vine to avoid breaking away the stem. If a stem breaks away, use that butternut first.