Pokeberries

I don't know if anyone reading this has ever had experience with pokeberries. For your sakes, I hope not!

This big leafy plant has taken over my yard with its fertility. In the beginning of the summer, I noticed one growing near the fence in my backyard. I cut it back, and thought that was the end of it. I came out a couple weeks later (it's been VERY hot- hard to even get out to look at the backyard!!) and come to find lots of little pokeberry plants scattered through my butterfly garden. I pulled them up and when I turned around to walk to put the clippings in my compost pile, I noticed two GIANT pokeberry plants on the other side of the yard.

The stems on these things are like tree bark. And they get very large very fast! Then they have these obnoxious purple-red berries which will dye anything red. AND the berries are poisonous. Just a great little plant, right?

Now, I don't have any kids yet, but I'm going to be sure to rid my yard of this weed before I have any kids running around in my backyard. Those berries look very similar to blueberries, and if I was a kid, I might have tried to eat one. And then had respiratory depression and died. Seriously, that is listed as one of the toxic reactions to eating these berries.

Oh, how I love yardwork. LOL

Thanks for reading........

~a