Oh, my. Looks like it is the source of those oval shaped "stickers" that get stuck to my poor little dog. No beggarweed for us, here, but good to know what it is ! Thank you so much.

Pokeweed/poke berry is a native plant that provides berries for birds. The berries ripen at different times meaning it provides berries over a long period of time. If memory serves, it is one of the few plants that continue to flower while it is already producing berries. I can understand not wanting it in a more formal landscape, but I think it has a place in a more wild area. I'm growing it in my restoration project. It is great in a hedgerow.

This is Polygonum persicaria, commonly called Knotweed, Smartweed, or Lady's Thumb. It is native to Europe and considered an invasive species here. (I just looked it up so don't be too impressed!) I've actually been using these plants to fill space in my big new flowerbed for a couple of years. I pull all but 3 or so. They are almost 6 feet tall right now and about 8 feet around. The stems of some of them are bright red and very pretty. The only thing is trying to decide when to cut them all down to prevent a million little babies next year. I let one go to seed in a corner of my vegetable bed last year and this spring I literally had a carpet of little baby plants, and they germinated in succession. I pulled babies for a couple of weeks and they just kept coming. I ended up just spraying them all with roundup. If you can control its potential to take over, I think it's a really beautiful plant.

Thanks Jeanne for the quick reply. There are no flowers on this plant. The flowers you see in the picture are from another plant. The plant that I think as a weed is the big green plant in the middle of the picture. The plant just keeps getting bigger and bigger has no buds and shows no signs of flowering. Can anyone ID this as a weed? Thanks Steve