Dear Friends,
Taking a break from thinking about the heart-rending reality of our national politics to talk about a native plant that you may want to encourage to grow in your wildflower garden. Pokeberry is a large, gangly native plant that goes by many names: American Pokeweed, Dragonberry, Pigeonberry, and Inkberry, to name but a few. Although all parts of the plant can be toxic to livestock, the berries are much beloved by a variety of songbirds including Mockingbirds, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Cardinals, Brown Thrashers, Cedar Waxwings, Bluebirds, and many more.
Pokeberry was one of several fruiting plants favored by the exquisite (and rarely seen in the Northeast) Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that was visiting the Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm. The Pokeberry was growing in the pigpen and around the edges of the farm fields. If you plan to grow it in your garden, know that Pokeberry can reach five to six feet and is a good candidate for the back of a border or along property edges.
In our own garden, we never had Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers until I let a volunteer Pokeberry grow where a bird had deposited a seed. Now we have a tribe of YBS stopping over during spring and autumn migration, a male, a female, and even a juvenile. This past autumn, our “pet” Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, as Charlotte likes to call the male who comes daily, was with us from October through December. He was mostly focused on procuring sap from our tree garden but I don’t think it would be here unless it had been initially attracted to the beautiful deep purple berries of the Pokeberry plant.
Grow Native and They Will Come!
P.S. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds drink nectar from the tiny white Pokeberry flowers.
Any idea where to get a pokeberry plant? I have an occasional YB Sapsucker and this week he was enjoying the sap he was getting from my Sugar Maple!
If this is Pam M, we can try to transplant one from one of our many volunteers this spring. If not successful, you can have some berries this fall 🙂
I always let it grow on the property as the birds just love it. First plant they all used to go to in the am. Sadly, the deer, for whom this is not poisonous, now eat it too, leaving nothing but crushed and mangled plants for the birds.
Oh JoeAnn, what a shame!! I was wondering about its toxicity to livestock because it is growing in the pigpen at Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm, right next to the sheep/goat/ donkey corral.