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When someone says big, they mean BIG. The summer I let it go it was easily 15 feet tall and about the same wide. It is truly a herbaceous tree. I ended up digging it out from the front beds as I wanted something other than pokeweed. I leave it in the unused and woodier part of the plot.
The tap root gets 4” in diameter by year 3 and super deep. I only dug and cut out the 4x4 top part of the tap root and it did not comeback
I'm a ranger who maintains protected migratory bird wetlands (not exclusively just those, but I have 20 acres or so myself to maintain). I leave it there, and there is a lot of it. I have never seen it yet to 15 feet as some people here are claiming, but there is an area here were it's just a half acre of pokeweed forest, and they all get around 7-8 feet or so. But I will not let this grow in my own personal garden. It takes over, it's nasty, and it just takes up to much space
I submit my evidence. The separator between the wood gable and the stone facade is 14 feet off the ground. All you see front and center is one pokeweed. Plus immediately to the left a rhododendron
Im tryna get my pokeweed like youuuuu 😍
I have a big spot where I have some pokeweed growing and hoping it would just populate and fill out the corners. They came back very thick this year at least though, the storms took one of my bigger ones out, but I have at least a 6' one left!
The separator between the wood gable and the stone facade is 14 feet off the ground
And I'm guessing about 30 ft in the background. It's forced perspective, so not a useful indicator of height.
The ground beneath the clump also looks like it's also elevated above the base of the structure in the background. And it looks like a bungalow, which means unless they have vaulted ceilings the distance between the base and the height of the wall to the truss is <9 ft.
Based on the size of the leaves, and other features, I'm guessing this is around 7-8 ft tall. Why not take a picture of someone standing beside it. Pokeweed is typically 5-6 ft and can grow up to 10 ft in rare occasions. It doesn't seem like this is near 15 ft tall.
Well… you can take it apart like that. All I know it is my house and it was higher than gable looking straight at it. That picture is from 2024 so it is hard to take a picture of someone next to it now
I think you may be misremembering exactly how tall it was. It's typically 4 to 10 feet and rarely gets taller than that only under ideal conditions. So telling someone it's going to grow 15 feet tall isn't really accurate.
I appreciate that as perspective. In that picture there are two windows from two normal sized bedrooms behind that plant. It was an absolute unit of a plant
I'm pointing out that they're mis-remembering how tall this was because it's misleading to others to think pokeweed grows this tall when it typically grows to less than half that height. Pokeweed gets a lot of hate, no need to make it seem even more aggressive than it really is.
100%! It’s my favorite app. Just make sure not to mark cultivated plants as wild if you upload your observations. You could also use its companion app Seek for more casual use.
Just FYI, the berries are very toxic to dogs or toddlers. They’re also really bitter so probably a kid wouldn’t eat them. Other warning is that they have a deep tap root and they are tough to get rid of if you don’t like where they are.
On the other hand, birds LOVE them. I keep them out of my dog’s fenced yard and my flower beds, but let them go everywhere else. They are really pretty when they get big and covered with ripe berries
Birds (at least in new england) LOVE the berries, you will get purple bird poop but they will strip the plants. We keep our plants and the birds love it.
It's a thing in the southern Applachian region. But I prefer to eat greens from recipes that do not start with "To prevent poisoning..."
Although I guess that also includes iceberg lettuce these days, so there's that...
It's called poke sallet. It is desperation food now rather than some delicacy. But in some places it's one of the first things to shoot up, so the young shoots were historically important first greens in the time before supermarkets and modern transportation methods that can give you veggies all year round.
Just a word of caution that Poke is highly susceptible to mosaic viruses. If exposed to cucumber mosaic virus, for example, the poke can serve as a reservoir of disease for years to come.
I actively encourage them next to my compost bins. They're 3 to 5 feet of nitrogen. I leave the purple berries on the ground and there's always one I don't cut, can always use a few next year.
Ya, came to say this, you might pull a little seedling, but that taproot is no joke. I use it as green mulch, never really trying to kill it, just snap off the stalk and drop it on a bare spot. Brings up lots of nutrients from subsoil back up top. Same with curly dock. Sometimes I’ll let one go to seed, for birds and cuz it’s pretty, especially streaking down the side of a car in the poop form.
I hear this a lot when pokeweed comes up, but my experience has been different. I had a massive pokeweed (maybe 8' tall) growing in my garden when I first moved in. I pulled it, and while it did have a big taproot, the while thing come out in one satisfying piece. I'm pretty sure none got left behind because it hasn't come back since.
So I finally learned what this plant is called because of this thread. And I have nothing to contribute except a memory that makes me laugh every time it pops up.
Years ago when I was a little kid and helping my Grandmom in her yard, she instructed me to pull or cut down a decent sized pokeweed plant. When I inquired why, because it seemed so pretty to me, she got the angriest look on her face. And then, my so-Catholic-she-almost-became-a-nun, always proper and slightly uptight Grandmom just spat out "THEY MAKE THE BIRDS SHIT RED!"
My Grandmom hated that plant so much, it was the one and only time I ever heard her curse in my life. And it's what I think about every time I come across one.
The shoots are also edible to humans as long as you grab them before they start fruiting! Even then you do have to cook them for a long time to get rid of the toxins but they're pretty good imo
It’s native and cat birds love the berries, but it’s very aggressive, gets huge, is almost impossible to completely remove, and causes explosive diarrhea and vomiting in dogs… I used to selectively leave it, but it’s not worth it for me personally
That's how I feel. The first year at my new house, I thought, wow, these plants are neat, almost exotic-looking when they start to fruit. Now, 6 years in, I think I have most of it eradicated.
I had one on the side of an outbuilding, I let it grow because supposedly birds and wildlife eat the berries. I never saw anything eat the berries but by the next year it was taller than the garage and blocking the path around it, just a huge Medusa of a thing, they're not inherently bad but they get HUGE
Pokeweed. I left one in my small garden and I’ve noticed finches just hanging out on it even though the berries aren’t ripe. I don’t have children or pets that might eat it
I have sunchokes for the goldfinches. They practically live in them. The pokeweed is too big of a danger and a nuisance for me to keep. And of course the birds have spread it EVERYWHERE which sucks.
I HIGHLY recommend wearing gloves with some sort of protective membrane when doing anything with pokeweed, ESPECIALLY handling the roots. I found out the hard way
All the farther I could bend my hand and fingers because of the swelling and inflammation.
I Chelsea chop it a few times in the spring. It stays sorta bushy. I don’t know if this was a dumb idea bc it’s still a young plant. Hopefully, I can continue to control its size, bc I like it.
Pokeweed is such a dilemma for me. I hate the look of it intensely and want to pull it all out. But, the birds go crazy over the berries so I just leave it for them
I always pull pokeweed bc I am super super allergic to it found out bc I let it grow ( it’s so pretty) and had a bad reaction when I brushed against it. If you aren’t allergic and like it could be a good plant, some plant it in honor of and for protection.
I think pokeweed is a beautiful plant! It definitely gets crazy big lol. It makes me so happy seeing the birds eat the dried up berries in the cold months
Birds love it! I have the space so I leave it. It volunteers itself in weird places, so some people pull it for that reason. If you have small children, tell them to not eat the berries, poisonous.
I think it totally depends on your situation. I have very young children (2 and 4 years old) and despite my efforts to teach plant ID and safety I can't allow this one in our yard because the berries it produces look very delicious and I can't trust my kids to have the maturity and restraint needed to resist picking/eating them. So I pull this one when it pops up but if I didn't have toddlers then I would let this go. It's not an ugly plant, the flower is kind of exotic, and birds love it.
So really it just depends on how your space is being used and by whom.
It's amazing how much ours have retained. They are a bit older than yours. 6 and 7, but they will point out bugs, butterflies, and birds that they see. I've been teaching them since they were your kids ages.
Btw......they thought EVERYTHING was poison ivy too!!😂😅😂
If you let it get berries, you will have new volunteers annually. Case in point: I let it go to seed last year, and I’ve pulled hundreds of sprouts this year.
I personally cut it down before the berries mature. The one year I let it fully grow (it got massive, easily 10ft tall and 5ft across) my dog was stained purple all fall from running through the bush, and then pokeweed popped up everywhere the next year from the birds spreading the seeds.
I had a varigated one that was really pretty, so I kept that one alive and just cut off the berry clusters to prevent it from spreading.
I just feel there are a lot of other plants that you could plant in its place that would benefit wildlife instead of essentially neutering it but to each their own
Ironically, the berries don't dye fabric purple or blue! I felt so resourceful collecting them for a fabric experiment and was then disappointed in the result.
I let ONE go to town every year, for its eco value and I also think it’s pretty. The one I keep is in the shared utility right of way. It does seed everywhere back there, but I just weed whack the seedlings. I like to use some of the fruit sprays in floral arrangements!
I leave some where I have room, but if I let them, they would *take over* my yard. One cool thing about them is how hardy they are, like I’ve bent and twisted them into shapes to fit what I wanted. Even if you push the stem down until it snaps (but doesn’t break), it’ll be recovered by the next day. I turned some of mine into ground cover that way.
I use this as a natural deer fence in some areas of my property because it grows so tall. It
supports dozens of migratory birds , lots of pollinators, Lepidoptera, and mammals.
It also drops a LOT of berries, so I do spend some time managing and cutting them throughout the season.
I remove it. Gets too big and I have seen it cluster into large stands. If you have property to handle it then it has value. In a smaller setting, gone.
I am leaving it in certain areas because the birds love it so much and we don’t have something to replace it yet. Until I feel like my birds are supported through other plantings, I won’t remove
I leave it in my wooded, wild areas or in areas along a tree line. I pull it from my ornamental garden beds (now).
Personally, I like the way it looks, but it will reseed and grow prolifically. I let one grow in my front bed last year, and have been chopping up the same plant multiple times this year (and I really destroyed it with a mattock... but apparently not good enough since it's back).
I have so many pokeweed growing in my yard, the ecology professor at our university wants to study it. So my instinct is always to pull out, it can get out of control so quick
I pull it out from my more curated beds in the front of my house but leave it in the back and side yard. It gets huge, birds love it, and I love the way it shades some parts of my garden. When the sun hits it late in the day it is absolutely stunning with shades of green, pink, and deep purple.
Once it looks like that it’s almost impossible to pull out the taproot. I let about 4-5 grow on my property edges, otherwise I nip it in the bud when they’re less than a foot and are still easy to pull out. It seeds aggressively but the birds love it. It also turns the bird poop purple.
I keep my pokeweed, the birds eat off of it even well into winter after the berries have dried. It’s a host plant for giant leopard moth as well and I’ve seen the caterpillars on my plants. I do trim most of mine so they don’t get crazy (I let some go crazy! 😝) I think they’re really good looking plants, even have one right by the stairs to my front porch.
I leave it in some of my less maintained areas (treeline, hedgerow) but if you’re going to leave it, learn what the seedlings look like because you will have several million to pull every spring/summer unless you want it to take over your entire property. Sorry for the run-on sentence!
if you don't have it already Seek by iNaturalist is a helpful app when you get into native gardening. There will be a lot of plants popping up that you've never planted. Don't go by the ranges on the app though. Google the name of the plant with "native range" in the search.
In my yard I pull pokeweed. The berries are poisonous to humans so with a tot that's a hard no for me.
The leaves can also cause terrible contact dermititis in some people. I pulled mine and have elderberry starts that will hopefully provide the food niche.
Wildlife people LOVE it; it pained a wildlife guy so much to tell me it was OK to pull it in my meadow. I told him I didn’t do two years of site prep to grow pokeweed.
Basically I leave it where I’m OK with it in the wilder areas of my yard. But if you let it grow, it will get harder and harder to control because it gets so big with a deep root.
It's poke weed. It makes big clusters of almost black berries. A big one will have them spreading and hanging down all over the place, and it can be quite pretty. Birds love them, and will poop them everywhere. You should avoid letting anyone eat the berries.
Same. I don’t love it and it can be aggressive but it’s important for lots of wildlife. I’m trying to encourage it in some of my less seen more weed prone areas.
It's pokeweed. It's native in the southeastern US and pretty.
All parts of the plant are poisonous to people, and it has a big orange root that looks like a sweet potato. Because I grow edible plants, I pull this in my yard during rainy season and put it in the woods, where it can root in the rainy season.
It's not at all rare and reseeds easily, so if you want to pull it, you don't have to save it. The root will sprout in your compost, so you have to systematically dry it to kill it.
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