Garden Help Desk: Trimming hanging baskets and a weed alert

For hanging baskets with plants like petunias, million bells and lobelia, a nice trim every couple of weeks can keep them looking good. Blossoms are borne on the ends of the trailing branches, and eventually, baskets can look mostly green with a fringe of color at the very bottom. Remove one or two of the longest branches by cutting them back to the middle or top of the baskets. They’ll branch out and regrow within a few weeks.

If you have a hard time remembering to do a little regular trimming, you can simply trim the entire basket back. It will take a few weeks for the basket to look good again.

For mixed baskets and containers, a combination of trimming and deadheading makes a difference. Cut off dead flowers and damaged leaves. Once that is done, trim back any straggly trailing branches.

Sometimes there will be an entire plant in a mixed basket or container that just isn’t looking good. A plant like that can simply be replaced.

Weed Alert: Recently an employee of a local Wasatch Front landscape maintenance company had a scare. She was pulling an unknown weed, (after all, a weed is a weed most of the time), and the next day, much of her body was covered in burns with blistering. It took almost two weeks for her to recover, and she was confined to her bed for much of the time. Even when the blisters went away, her skin remains discolored where she was exposed, and she also experienced some scarring.

Later, the owner of the company, an experienced horticulturist, identified the weed as wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa). Wild parsnip was introduced from Europe and Asia and is a weed in much of the United States. It has been known to be in Utah, but it was assumed that it was uncommon.

The same landscape maintenance company owner recently identified the weed in at least three places in southern Utah County, and two locations were verified through follow up by USU Extension agricultural faculty at two of the sites.

Wild parsnip commonly grows in disturbed areas such as roadsides, over-grazed or otherwise under-maintained pastures and ditch banks. It seems to need a relatively regular water source in Utah’s dry climate. It grows to 4-6 feet tall and has yellow flowers, somewhat similar to the herb dill, in late summer.

The plant lives for two years, where in the first year it forms a rosette and then grows tall and blooms in the second year. It is on many states’ noxious weed lists.

According to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, it is contact with the sap that causes burns. The sap contains a chemical that is activated by UV light. In addition to harming humans, it can also affect livestock that consumes it or otherwise comes into contact with it.

If the weed is found, it should be eradicated. Because of potential harm from hand-pulling it, it is best to spray an herbicide. Products containing glyphosate, 2,4-D, and/or dicamba should eliminate the weeds from the site. Repeated applications may be needed over a period of time. Because of the potential of seeds germinating after the original plants are destroyed, sites where it was eradicated should be monitored for several years. Individual plants or small patches may be hand-pulled if proper clothing and equipment is worn, but extreme caution should be exercised.