I have a number of the plants each year, due to birds dropping the indigestible seed. If you can find them when they are young plants, they can be easily pulled up, but the native species, Phytolacca americana, is a perennial and can develop a very large, fleshy root, similar to a carrot or parsnip, only white in color. If your soil is loose, they can also be pulled up, but in hard packed soil, clay, for example, will require digging them up. You must get all of the root or they can reemerge.
Sorry, I haven't found another method to permanently remove them and as long as there are berry eating birds around, you can never be completely rid of them!
All parts of the plant are poisonous to humans, although many people do consume the tender leaves, when they first emerge in the spring. The leaves are repeatedly boiled during three water changes to remove the toxins and ingestion is limited to small quanities each time.
IMO, there are numerous green, leafy vegetables, that require less time to prepare and are just as tasty and probably more healthy than "poke salat". :Rb

I dig 'em up. Works better if you soak the area ahead of time, the root comes out easier that way.

Buy Round-up BRUSH killer concentrate. Buy a $1.00 sponge foam paint brush, about 1 inch wide. When the temperatures reach 80* and the poke sallet plants are actively growing, paint the leaves with the Round-up. This keeps the weed killer on just the plants and off your lawn. They key is to buy BRUSH killer and CONCENTRATE. It will kill the roots.

It is sad to hear of your battle against a perfectly beautiful native American plant that thrives North to South and westward beyond the Mississippi River. Not only is poke (_Phytolacca americana_) a thing of beauty--tropical-looking leaves, attractive flowers and fruit, gorgeous maroon stems, but also it feeds a host of wild birds--those birds, e.g., mockingbirds and catbirds, that do not visit birdfeeders. My advice to you is to respect and embrace this fine native plant rather than carrying out chemical warfare against it. There's a fine description of poke on Floridata. Google the phrase _poke floridata_ to learn more about this botanical gem.

WARNING
The roots, berries, seeds, and mature stems and leaves of pokeweed are dangerously poisonous. Only the young shoots and developing leaves (before they take on their reddish hue) can be eaten, and only after boiling for 20-30 minutes in at least two changes of water. Be very careful not to get any of the root when picking the young shoots. Pokeweed should not be cultivated anywhere there is a chance that a person might try to eat the berries.

Pokeweed is an alternative host for several plant viruses that feeding insects can transmit to members of the Solanaceae, Liliaceae and Amaryllidaceae growing nearby.

Steve Christman 7/23/00; updated 7/7/03, 9/22/03

(excerpt) Click on the link to see full article.

http://www.floridata.com/ref/P/phyt_ame.cfm

I used to have a lot of it, but by diligently pulling it up when it's young (before it bore fruit/seeds) I believe I've eradicated it.

And I don't think round up works when it's cold. It has to be 60+ degrees.

I love this plant! It is absolutely beautiful! I always try to have at least one in the garden. Granted, you need to keep an eye on its reproductive behavior but the effort is worth it!

Now if I could only get control of the passion flower in my garden. check this link http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=207874
An outstanding flower but man, what an agressive, strong weed!

As a kid, I used to mash up Pokeberries and use them for dyeing wrapping paper. The color was beautiful, and the paper looked really, really, expensive.

Those chemicals that kill plants are not exactly vitamins. I become mildly ill every time my neighbor sprays herbicide on his property. He goes to the hospital. How difficult is it remove weeds and throw them on the compost, anyway?

I tried the brush killer from Round up and it worked like a champ. Spray it on, wait a week, dig up roots. Works well.

Why is it that you can't forgo the spraying and the waiting and just dig it up? That's what I do.

If you have shovel allergies, try boiling water when you can on weeds. Free & not poisonous.

I am an organic gardener but have resorted to a foray into chemical applications for poison ivy wrapped around my peonies. The polk weed is a real problem for me too. I do not see it as beautiful when it blankets my yard edges and shows up everywhere! I have been digging it up but must say that it often snaps off at the root and regrows. I will keep at it but does anyone know if it will die even if the root remains if you keep breaking it off?

If they are allowed to grow to full size, the tap root will be huge. 3 or 4 inches diameter and 18 inches long. At that point, continuously breaking new growth probably won't affect it much.

Continually breaking new younger plants might kill the root eventually.

This probably isn't too helpful, but poke sallet's delicious.If you change the water 2-3 times when boiling, it tastes a lot like asparagus.But only pick the very young shoots.
We used to eat lots of it in the spring.

Pokeweed pops up in a few places in my woodland garden and I let it grow. I think it's a beautiful plant, but can understand the frustration of those who are inundated with it. To keep mine under control, I pinch off the flowers as they form. Poke looks good planted with castor bean, another poisonous plant, at least the seeds are. I had pokeweed growing in my cannas and I just kept cutting it to ground level. Eventually it died.

The whole poke plant & the Whole Castor Bean plant are poisonous.

I have many poke plant growing in the wild areas of my 10 acres.

I tilled 36 inches from a plant to plant one of 75 blueberry plants & 2 weeks later thousands of seedlings came up.

I covered them with mulch, if this dose not work, them I will hand pull them, lay them out to wilt & turn brown before composting them.

I have eat poke before, but collards are so easy to grow that I do not eat poke anymore.

My collards will live for 4 years, if watered in the HOT Fall months, so no need for poke.

Poke plant are for the birds.

I wish you luck in removing it from your land.

Polk salad once established has a large tuber type root (like a russet potatoe) and will continue to grow out of that root even if you kill off the top with roundup/herbicide etc... have to dig the root out if they are established... new plants from bird droppings (8-10 inches tall)... a hoe/ herbicide will knock out!

It's a pretty plant, so too bad it's poisonous and grows like freaking bamboo! AGH. I feel ya.. I dumped an entire gallon of roundup and I think it killed about 3 of them.

Let us know if the roundup works. The root is so big that it may not kill the root, roundup will not kill a lot of perennial weeds(wild garlic,dewberries) the bulb & tubers are hard to kill. I dig my roots up & put them in the trash, wear glove the root/tuber & seeds are highly

poisonous.

I have dug down 18 inches to get after the roots of a well-established poke weed plant. The remaining five (!) roots from the single plant are 3/4" to 1 1/4" in diameter. I have removed the large crown of the root system. If i fill in the hole at this depth is the plant likely to grow back? If I brush Round-Up on the root stubs at the bottom of the hole to kill the remainder of the roots and then put a 4" wide stone on top of each poisoned stub before filling in the hole, will the Round-Up be toxic to dahlias that I later plant 5" deep on the siite? (Dahlia tubers are planted ony 5" deep and don't send down significant roots.)

Pour boiling water in the hole.