Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

It's the scary season for this invasive plant

Beware: Pokeweed berries are toxic

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED SEP 24, 2020

This cluster of pokeweed berries shows how they look at all stages of ripeness. Unripe ones resemble tiny green pumpkins, but the berries fill out, resembling blueberries, when ripe. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Ghosts, haunted houses, bats and other scary images are in season. But do you know what really makes me shudder? Seeing ripe pokeweed berries at child height.

Usually pokeweed berries grow in grapelike clusters, but

sometimes they appear in clumps like this.

Those dark purple berries are toxic to humans, dogs, livestock and other mammals. The birds who eat and carry them around, conveniently reseeding the plant, somehow are immune to the poison. Gardeners, you may be growing this plant for a lot of reasons -- it IS pretty, with its white flowers and red stems -- but if it's near where children or dogs walk or play, please reconsider.

American pokeweed ( Phytolacca americana ) is an invasive plant with a long history. It's a native of eastern and southeastern states that has spread over the years to parts of California, including the Central Valley, according to the UC Integrated Pest Management program, which just last week updated its public information page on pokeweed.

"Pokeweed is found in riparian areas, oak woodlands, forest edges, fence rows, forest openings, pastures, under power lines, disturbed areas, vineyards, orchards, cultivated fields, parks, and ornamental landscape," the IPM pokeweed page notes. You'll notice that a lot of those sites are hangouts for birds.

The plant has some uses: The berries' juice make wonderful dye, apparently, and also has been used for ink. Historically the leaves were considered edible; one of its alternate names is "poke salad."

But UC IPM is unequivocal in its warning against consuming any part of this plant:

"Although sometimes eaten, the entire plant is poisonous and should be considered with extreme caution. The leaves and stems of young pokeweed plants can be ingested only after repeated blanching; without proper preparation, pokeweed can cause a variety of symptoms, including death in rare cases."

A single pokeweed plant can produce up to 7,000

seeds annually.

Pokeweed is invasive and a survivor. Its seeds remain viable for up to 50 years, according to the UC IPM page. Once established, it has a long taproot and doesn't require regular water. It dies back after the first frost, then re-sprouts in spring.

Say you've discovered one of these plants in your garden and want to cut it down. First of all, don't put any of it in your compost bin or the green waste container. And wear gloves, since the ripe berries burst easily and stain fingers. Put a large trash bag over the stem with the ripe berries, and then cut the stem so the berries fall into the bag, not on the ground. When you have cut off all the berry clusters, tie the bag and put it in the trash bin. Then dig out the rest of the plant with a shovel, going after the taproot, and discard that, too.

In the spring keep an eye out for new sprouts. As with any invasive weed, the best organic advice is "Just keep digging."

Chemical controls are possible, UC IPM notes, but that's mostly for agricultural eradication; if you're curious, the instructions can be found at the page linked above.

And if a child eats the berries -- stains around the mouth will be a giveaway -- contact Poison Control immediately. There's a poison control for pets , too.

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

toxic plants gardening Sacramento birds pests Central Valley gardening history pokeweed UC IPM invasive plants

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Flowers in My Back Yard Series

July 14: How to keep hydrangeas happy

July 7: Grow these bright cosmos for bees and butterflies

June 30: Agapanthus adds blue fireworks to the garden

June 23: Easy-care gazanias fill those hot corners

June 16: Daylilies are perfect for water-wise gardens (and a lot more)

June 9: Grow coneflowers for pollinators -- and yourself

June 2: Sunflowers capture Sacramento's summer attitude

May 29: Are your roses going 'blind'?

May 26: Zinnias are the summer flowers every garden needs

May 19: Plant dahlias now for late-summer flower power

May 12: Know your coreopsis from your bidens

May 5: Mums the word on Mother's Day weekend

April 28: Majestic Matilija poppy is worth a look

April 21: Celebrate roses, America's favorite flower

April 14: Small flowers with outsized impact

April 7: Calendulas do double duty

April 3: Make Easter lilies last for years to come

March 31: In praise of a pollinator magnet (small-leaf salvias)

March 24: Azaleas brighten shady spots

March 17: The perfect flower for beginners? Try zonal geraniums

March 10: Keep camellias happy for years to come

March 3: Fruit tree blossoms are a fleeting joy

Feb. 27: Are your roses looking rusty?

Feb. 24: Treasure spring daffodils now and for years to come

Feb. 17: How and why to grow wildflowers

Feb. 10: Let's talk Valentine's Day roses

Feb. 3: Why grow flowers?

Local News

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Sites We Like

Garden checklist for week of July 12

Get out early in the morning to take care of garden chores. Temperatures are expected to stay below 80 degrees before 10 a.m.

* Remember to water early and deep; your garden depends on you.

* It’s not too late to add a splash of color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers.

* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.

* Water before fertilizing vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost. Feeding flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom.

* Feed vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting.

* Don’t let tomatoes wilt or dry out completely. Give tomatoes a deep watering two to three times a week. Harvest vegetables promptly to encourage plants to produce more. Squash especially tends to grow rapidly in hot weather. Keep an eye on zucchini.

* If your melons and squash aren’t setting fruit, give the bees a hand. With a small, soft paintbrush, gather some pollen from male flowers, then brush it inside the female flowers, which have a tiny swelling at the base of their petals. (That's the embryo melon or squash.) Within days, that little swelling should start growing.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.

* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves.

* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.

Send us a gardening question, a post suggestion or information about an upcoming event. sacdigsgardening@gmail.com

Taste Spring! E-cookbook