The flowers will turn into juicy purple berries. Then the whole thing will die to the ground in winter and come back from the taproot in the spring (assuming it is hardy for you, that is what happens in Georgia). Here in the south, I've seen older ones get as big as 10-12 feet tall, not sure if that will happen for you in a colder area.

Here in NY they tend to be from about 4 feet tall to about 6 or 7 feet. I never measured but that's my estimate. We have pokes in abundance and they seem to be very hardy. I've never noticed any significant leaf damage to one so I suspect the bugs and other critters don't eat them much. The berries are very attractive and do get eaten up by birds. Stem color can also be very striking. Don't eat the berries or any part of the plant unless you really know how to prepare it safely. I am told that people shouldn't handle them often or barehanded.

The berries are quite poisonous to us. My wife and I have boiled and eaten the shoots, only when they are 8 inches or less in height, in Spring. Very good. Never risked eating any that are taller. Plants produce the same poison that makes potato, tomato and related plants' green parts so dangerous to eat.

I have handled tons of Pokeberry plants without any ill effects. They may be poisonous to eat, but I think they are perfectly safe to handle. For that matter, tomato plants are perfectly safe to handle, so if pokeberry produces the same compounds perhaps the compounds don't act on or through the skin. Mine grow perhaps 6 or 8 feet tall in a prime location, and they are one of the berries eaten by a wide variety of birds. They flower right up to a frost, as if they aren't expecting it. In this regard they differ from most other native plants, making me think they are recent arrivals in the temperate zone.

Not at all poisonous to handle, and the berries are not that toxic, the seeds are. It's all about quantity with the berries. Not advising anyone to eat them, but I do use a tincture I make from the berries as a lymphatic system mover, and for treating mastitis. I also grow a variegated form 9P. americana 'Silberstien') I bought from Ellen Hornig, and it's a beauty. I love poke.

Here is a link that might be useful: P. Silberstein appears on this page

I was amazed to see that you bought one of these things. Around here they're considered weeds and yanked out. In Maryland they grow about six feet tall and wide. They'll put out purple berries that the birds eat. So be careful and don't park your car outside, it will be covered with purple bird "ecological contributions"

Florrie

I ordered the seed for the variegated variety this year. I intend to winter sow it for next year. Since I am already invaded with pokeweed, I figured it is simply time to join them. This way I am at least introducing some variety and colorful vegetation!

My pokeweed here in CT grow to over six feet. I am told in warmer climates they grow to twice that size. They are fairly interesting and attractive plants as well. Fewer than 1,000 of them would be great, I tell people.

One woman posted a photo of how she keeps them trimmed and they look really nice when they berry. Mine are allowed to grow into single large tree-like plants. This means pulling the hundreds of seedlings around them.

I am told the original constitution was written in pokeberry ink.

LOL evonne, fewer than 1000 would be nice! My neighbor has a patch of several enormous Pokeberries right along the border of my property. The birds lurk about the patch constantly when the berries are ripening. Over the years, the birds have probably pooped out oh, about a couple million seeds in my back yard. Plants would sprout here and there but it wasn't too bad because it was pretty shady from the trees.

Well, last fall I had 2 1/2 large Norway maples removed (yes only 1/2 because the tree guys ran out of time). With the new sunlight zillions of Pokeberries have sprouted. I can't believe how vigorous they are, competing nicely with the Oriental bittersweet, which has also gone nuts. At least it's native.

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Thanks for sharing your magical pokeweed forest photos! Lol. I had one just like that and weeded it down to just a few nice specimens.

Just returned from a sailing adventure in the Agean and Adriatic seas, and along the rather dry, rocky coasts, what do I see?? Pokeberry! It was not as lush as here, due to the dryness of August, but it was already in fruit and doing rather nicely. Good contrast to the vineyards and herbs that grow there in the wild.

Wildcrafting is just like that...if you are a careful student the whole world opens up and you discover useful things all around you, but one wrong move could really have disastrous effects. Poke greens have been a spring delicacy for many generations, but someone back there in the beginning had to learn the hard way about boiling it and so on. You really have to appreciate the difficulties our earliest indigenous peoples had to face...(I'm really really hungry but that strange mushroom or berry might just kill me).

Poke is a beautiful plant but it can become weedy. I did a controlled burn here in our woods about 5 years ago and poke was the very first thing to pop up, which surprised me because I did not know it could tolerate complete shade. I am still watching to see if it's just a progressive and will eventually fall back before the advance of more trees, or what. And there IS a caterpillar that will completely defoliate poke, though I am not the expert who can tell you what it is. I did a nighttime caterpillar walk just the other night (if you haven't tried it, you have to give it a go...you will be amazed at the things munching away under cover of darkness!) and noticed that many of the poke plants had been stripped.

Just out of curiosity, I am wondering what the going price for a poke plant is...around here that would be comparable to purchasing a dandelion!

Last year I had a couple of pokes in a corner of my yard ~ now it's taken over the whole corner! I've had to pull most of it. Actually trying to get all of it gone.

I like to hang my clothes out and once the birds "deposit" some pokeberry full poo that's it. Harder to get out of clothes than red wine!

Besides that they are crowding out my sweet pepperbush "grove" which smells heavenly in August.

My wife (the none gardener in the family) calls it red giant bean stalk plant because it grows so fast. I manage my patch and leave some for the bluebirds every fall.

Some reader of this forum e-mailed me, asking for berries, if I found any. I have, but lost the e-mail address of the person. I pull up any plants I find among the cultivated garden, but one grew among the raspberries and I just saw it today because of the dark berries.

Sprouts up all over the place...anywhere a bird deposits the seed while in flight. Only place it doesn't grow is when a purple splat is deposited on one of the cars! Not great for auto paint. Can't get rid of larger stands as they feed birds with berries.

Our deer eat leaves about 4' up plant. It's one of only things I don't mind them eating...there's plenty for everyone. Now if they would just eat garlic mustard. Not even the rapacious groundhogs eat that.

It is so horticulturally refreshing to know that you appreciate the poke plant well enough to buy a specimen for your garden. Like esh ga's observation of the poke plant in the State of Georgia, my observation of poke in the neighboring State of South Carolina is that here in our relatively warm climate, poke tops out at ten or twelve feet, with a vase-shaped spread, or inverted-umbrella spread. From my perspective, poke is a gorgeous native plant that provides a lush tropical effect--large leaves, maroon stalks, and racemes of white flowers followed by dark, bluish-black fruits which provide a feast for our mockingbirds, catbirds, and brown thrashers. I think I've also seen cardinals eating the berries. I like poke so much that I allowed the one that came up as a volunteer at the foot of my front doorsteps to remain there as an ornamental.

Here in the South, we have clay eaters who gather kaolin clay to eat as a dietary supplement. Scientists term this practice geophagia. Likewise, some among us eat young, tender poke leaves as one of their garden greens, cooked like cabbage, spinach, or turnip greens. Last spring, as I drove over the crest of a hill, I nearly rearended a car parked in the middle of the road. Its occupants were halfway up the roadbank madly harvesting poke leaves for their culinary stock pot.