Can we talk about the volunteer who yanked a 3 foot tall pokeweed at the Louisville nature center and left the roots

Iris Sullivan · 2026-10-03T12:10:03.879297+00:00

Last Saturday I was at the nature center in Louisville for a volunteer weed pull, and this guy I got paired with grabbed a 3 foot tall pokeweed and just yanked it straight out of the ground, leaving a fat chunk of taproot behind like a broken tooth. I told him that pokeweed comes back from root fragments, and he shrugged and said it was fine, so I dug the rest out myself with a hori hori knife. Two years ago I did the same thing with a smaller one in my own yard in New Albany, and that plant came back three springs in a row before I finally got the whole root ball out. Now I always carry a trowel to volunteer days instead of relying on the gloves they hand out, because most people treat weeds like the stem is the whole plant. There was also a patch of garlic mustard maybe 20 feet away, and if you pull that one without getting the S shaped root crown, you just made a seed bed for it. So how do you all handle volunteers who do the quick yank? Do you say something in the moment, or wait and quietly redo the spot after they move on?

Opinions Matter

Loading…

Can we talk about the volunteer who yanked a 3 foot tall pokeweed at the Louisville nature center and left the roots | Botany Lovers - Opinions Matter