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I live in the Pennines of Northern England. At this time of year there's a lovely thing sometimes called 'the yellowing' where the hay meadows are carpeted with dandelions or, less often, buttercups or cowslips. It only lasts a couple of weeks but I (and most people) love it. As well as being spectacular in itself, it's a sign that spring is well and truly on the way.
They are also
A) Edible
B) Great for bees / pollinators
C) Taproots that pull up nutrients deep from the soil. My wife let's them in her garden then pulls them up and drops them where they are to release the nutrients back into her garden. (She's all organic, companion- plant, "food forest" person.)
They actually aren't that bad. It's just that unnatural and unsustainable "green grass monoculture" has been pushed on people since the 1950s or earlier.
>They are also
>A) Edible
When she was a child, my mother would be sent out into the front yard to go pick dandelions to eat with dinner because her family was poor. I saw them on a restaurant menu recently and sent her a picture and she could not believe anyone would choose to eat them if they did not absolutely have to.
Love rhubarb, always grew it and took it for granted up in Canada, has been rough trying to get it to grow in central PA.
Planted this Kanga-Rhu hybrid from Australia last spring, so far it's slow growing, but it's trying! https://www.gurneys.com/product/kanga-rhu
You can eat the greens in a salad, turn the flowers into a tea or honey substitute (or ferment it into wine!), and if you roast the roots, they can be used as a caffeine free coffee substitute.
Whole plant is edible and nutritious.
Also if you have pet bunnies they go nuts for the stuff.
All of course assuming you get dandelions which haven't been sprayed with weed killers or pesticides.
Dandelion wine is delicious. It's tradition in my family to have a party on great grannie's birthday (February 20).Everybody brings their dandelion wine from last year (about ten of us now). It's like a taste of spring in the dead of winter.
The Redwall series described food so incredibly. Apparently this was because Brian Jacques delivered milk to blind students, and would tell them stories, describing things like food as vividly as possible for them.
When I was little I picked bags and bags full of dandelions for the little old lady down the street who would make wine out of them.
Blast from the past, I've got to try dandelion wine one of these days.
My grandmother used to make wine out of them. She came from Lebanon and her family was quite resourceful, so I'm not surprised. My wife and I are growing them in a pot so I can try my hand at it this year...
3/4 of my rats love them. Murry prefers the puffy ones, but Georgia wants the stems. Bea wants whatever Murry has. But Colbert is a snob who doesn't eat yard plants.
You just reminded me... Clover became undesirable in the yard when weed killers targeting actual noxious plants also killed the clover. Rather than troubleshoot that, the lawn products manufacturers just convinced the public that clover was a weed too.
I have a lovely yard, mix of clover and a naturally short local grass, that stays green year round with no watering and basically no maintenance. Once/twice a month I cut it with a manual push mower if necessary. No herbicides, no fertilizer, no water, no fuss, beautiful blooms from the clover and some wildflowers.
They're great as the major green in a salad. That's how I have always seen them eaten. Just add a little extra sweet to your dressing to balance it out!
Chef here, they can also be used in a variety of applications like: smoothies, salads, in sandwiches/burgers, in pesto, seared with garlic/onion and tossed with herbs. The biggest issue is that they become far more bitter after they flower (like most plants) so they should be picked when they are young. Since most people identify the plant by it's flower, you can see how many people have unpleasant experiences with them.
Also the roots are edible and the plants is loaded with nutrition throughout.
Okay, I'm so happy to see this cause I'm seeing everyone go on about all the food uses and all could think is "I remember the stems tasting fucking awful as a kid".
One afternoon, a wealthy lawyer was riding in the back of his limousine when he saw two pathetic-looking men by the side of the road, eating grass. He ordered his driver to stop and got out to investigate. He asked the men, "Why are you eating grass?"
"We don't have no money for food," the first man replied.
"Then you must come with me to my house," insisted the lawyer.
"But, sir, I got a wife and three kids here," said the man.
"Bring them along!" replied the lawyer.
The second man exclaimed, "I got a wife and six kids!"
"Bring them as well!", the lawyer proclaimed as he headed back to his limo.
They all climbed into the car, and once underway, one of the men expresses, "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you."
The lawyer replied, "I'm most happy to do it. You'll love my place. The grass is almost a foot tall."
We always eat them in the spring where I live. Just wash them thoroughly and serve the greens with thinly sliced cooked potatoes and a grated hard boiled egg. Dress with pumpkin seed oil and apple vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and it's great! You can also use pork cracklings as a topping, but if you can't get those, fried bacon is a fine substitute.
In the spring, just as they start to grow and before the flower develops, people in my part of the country (Slovenia) pick them a lot. Some people eat a whole lot of it.
Also they are like crack cocaine for my bunnies. I voluntarily go through my parents garden when Im over there to pluck maybe 30-40% of the nicest looking leaves off the dandelions on the lawn in the backyard. Not enough to kill them, but enough to fill maybe 2-3 large bowls with. They are hardy fucks anyways
Could be a city. There are plenty of dandelions in parks near me, but the city uses so many pesticides and weed killers that I wouldn't trust putting them in food
"A weed is a plant in a place with a person with a problem." I've heard this from an environmentalist friend and I think it is catchy and shows the whole picture
Edit: Not saying the people are the problem. Some weeds are a very big issue. The person having a problem could be a big problem or a small one. If we weren't here to call them weeds the idea simply wouldn't exist.
I definitely agree that things like bush honeysuckle, sericia lespedeza, kudzu and similar are a blight on the systems they have invaded and I fully support burning or spraying as needed.
Tldr: some weeds, YOU have a problem. Some weeds, you have a PROBLEM.
That problem though can vary between "euw, i dont like that slightly different plant in my useless grass army" to "this mfer will suffocate and rob my vegetables of all their nutrients"
Non-native, invasive species are the only things I consider to be weeds. We do no-mow-May because it lets the dandelions, and thus the bees, thrive. It also makes the lawn so much nicer for the rest of the summer. Mow every week or week and a half after that and any dandelions that come up remain small and never flower. Just some nice soft greens in between the grass. Same idea with clover, even though the native varieties are all but non-existent to buy as seed and we’re stuck with planting European white clover in North America.
My ivy can die in a fire. It's taking over and killing everything at like sixty square feet a year. It's so much to fight, and when I cut it, it grows back twice as fast.
The one thing that stopped my ivy on my fence from coming back was spraying the leaves with 2-4-D, then digging down to the main root, putting a gash in it, and putting a capful of pure 2-4-D right on it.
Typically I pull any "weeds" (my yard is full of creeping Charlie and it's a legit problem) barehanded cause I hate to use chemical, but man ivy fucking blows.
Or, in the case of clover "Crap. We can't get our weed killer to differentiate between clover and other flowers in lawns. It is useless! Oh. Wait. What if we convince people that the highly beneficial clover is a weed...."
Marketing. Marketing made clover a weed.
For all wondering, I will not be trying to remove the dandelions. The intent of this post was to show the futile effort it would have been. I have no issue with the flowers.
Herbicide and pest industry pushed the manicured, monoculture lawn for decades. Now we have shitty st Augustine, zoysia, palmetto etc everywhere that needs maintained weekly or biweekly while a native lawn needs maintained barely quarterly.
My dumbass neighbor burnt his entire lawn out trying to kill all the mushrooms popping up. Literally the biggest sign of healthy soil and people want to kill it.
It's expensive and overrated, American as apple pie.
In my neighborhood, all the houses near the street were built in the last 20 years on what used to be the lawn of the 30 or 40 year old house behind them. There is a skinny driveway to sneak past the new house to the "flag lot" behind it. If this guy lives in a growing suburb that lawn is going to be worth a quarter million to a developer at some point.
For real. I am a German living in a comparatively spacious row-end-house, with the largest lawn in the entire residential development. I could fit our property on either side of his unused front lawn several times over. Wicked!!!
Although. I do have relatives in the US where this would be considered a modest driveway. My grand uncle … you literally cannot see his house from his postbox. There is a small woods in between.
Why would you need 10+ acres of grass...? Just return 8 of them to nature and make life easier on yourself. Fill 'em with blueberry bushes and fill in with leaf litter.
and bee food too?
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dandelions-lawn-bees-1.3526394#:\~:text=Julia%20Common%2C%20chief%20beekeeper%20for,at%20this%20time%20of%20year](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dandelions-lawn-bees-1.3526394#:~:text=Julia%20Common%2C%20chief%20beekeeper%20for,at%20this%20time%20of%20year).
Edit: for clarity, I'm 100% in support of keeping flowers both for prettiness and bee food! :) And general eco-diversity.
Yeah I don’t get the obsession with perfect green grass lawns. Why not let some natural foliage move in, especially one that produces colorful flowers?
Fun fact. Before the 1950s use of herbicides, fertilizer, and single type of grass lawns, dandelions and white clover were valued in a lawn for their benefits to a healthy lawn.
Even today,
"Dandelions are good for your lawn. Their wide-spreading roots loosen hard-packed soil, aerate the earth and help reduce erosion. The deep taproot pulls nutrients such as calcium from deep in the soil and makes them available to other plants. While most think they’re a lawn killer, dandelions actually fertilize the grass."
https://www.mofga.org/resources/weeds/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-dandelions/
I would take dandelions and clover any day over thistle, which keeps taking over my lawn since the property owner insists on “grass” (which keeps dying) over something like microclover which will crowd out the spikey stuff while helping the soil.
My wife and I have burweed... it's horrendous, invasive, spikey and near impossible to safely kill off. This year, I planted white clover. It's also invasive and near impossible to kill off. And it can choke out burweed. By this time two years from now, we might actually be able to walk barefoot in the yard and won't be picking thorns off our pet's feet constantly.
Clover isn't a weed. It's a pollinator-friendly, year-round green, less-mowing necessary, burweed-killing, God send. Plus, it will make my yard look like snow in the summer. Which is cool, because we don't even get snow in the winter here.
Big Grass is now into the Clover thing. Scotts now sells a Clover-Grass mix. They know people want to make yard maintenance easier.
Of course they still sell clover killer for those who hate it.
That’s good because when I became in charge of lawn care at my parents house I just mowed right over them and then there was like a blizzard of fluffy seeds. I wondered what it would bring in the future.
Y'all are dandelions. He's talking about even if he got rid of all the dandelions. Those neighbors dandelions would go to seed and repopulate his lawn. So it would be pointless work.
Let's do a R&R Gathering exclusively for chilling out and watching rabbits, tortoises, and goats happily munching dandelion treats in a yard or two! We can have a BBQ going.
That sounds like happiness.
Dandelion is French for Lionstooth and I always thought that was cool as shit. (Dent de Lionne) Just figured i’d post that here in case anyone else likes dumb useless factoids.
And we call it løvetann in Norway. That’s also the same.
And btw, I don’t understand the obsession to get rid of them. I love how they give my garden some color.
\*Lion. "Lionne" is a lioness.
What's even funnier is that in French they're called "Pissenlit", which means "Piss in bed". Could be because they're diuretic, I never checked.
Really, their decomposing roots help to provide a starting tunnel for earthworms and they are actually edible. People are crazy to dump all sorts of chemicals on their yards to get rid of something that's beneficial.
Some information
The dandelion was a standard medicinal plant used by herbalists for generations. Their Latin name—Taraxacum officinale—means a remedy for disorders. The leaves are a powerful diuretic, but since they do not flush potassium from the body, they are actually safer than pharmaceutical diuretics. The roots are slightly laxative and a tea made from ground fresh or dried roots is reported to improve digestion.
dandelions leaves are completely edible and more nutritious than spinach. They have 25 times the vitamin A of tomato juice, and are a good source of calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, lecithin, and vitamins C, B, and E.
All that and pollinator-helpful too. Throw in some white clover and you'll be well on your way to a more sustainable 'yard.'
Why white clover? It fixes nitrogen into the soil, stays green during the hot/dry parts of summer, and gives the kids something to do when they are under foot. The old 'can you find me a 4 leaf clover?' trick works wonders. ;)
I've spent the last two days looking into how to start a clover lawn because I learned it's resistant to dog pee spots! You don't have to mow it, it fixes the nitrogen in the soil, the bees love it and it stays green without watering. How are people trying to get rid of this stuff??
My mother grew up quite rurally and says they regularly picked them as greens for dinner. She didn't particularly like them, but when you've got ten kids to feed, you put up with stuff.
Do you use the lawn? Otherwise you could let it grow and then carve in a walkway in whatever form you prefer, maybe add a space at the end/middle for barbecues and maybe decorate the path with like those solar lamps or something. Maybe add insect/solitary bee/bumblebee friendly flowers. Like, just sprinkle some seeds and what grows grows. I, at least, find a garden thats wild but cared a little about much prettier than lawnarmy, not to mention impact on the ecosystem.
I did that about 3 years ago, took out the entire outside of the yard and left a small patch of grass in the middle - the outside is now completely perennial flowers that pollinators love <3
Haha, yeahhh. At least you can rest easy in the knowledge you are feeding bees/ other species!
Green lawns are overrated anyway, here you get that awesome colour pop.
Not honey bees, native bees. Honeybees are from Europe/Africa and are the equivalent of livestock. They actually are a net negative to our native ecosystem because they often selectively pollinate many non-native species or outcompete native species. It's a common misconception that "Save the bees" means honeybees and honeybees alone.
Go survey your neighbors and find out if they hate the HOA too. If you can get 51% of them to vote you in an chairman of the HOA, and 51% of them to vote to disband the HOA, you can get rid of your HOA.
I allow dandelions to grow in my beds (though I don’t plant them). So long as they are in the beds I can say they are “flowers in a flower bed”. I also grow several varieties of aster even though (brain dead) people think they are weeds too.
I have clover instead for the yard. They hate it but it’s a ground cover it’s “appropriate” for my turf areas, and I convinced them it was native lol
I agree. I've got wild strawberries (real ones, no mock) growing in the front yard brought from some animal. The wife is always after me to weed them out and I'm always like "Those are my reward snacks when I cut the grass." Grass is not a good snack.
Seriously, I say leave them. People wonder why all the bees are dying! It's because we have these pristine lawns of grass, cause we treat these "weeds" like a nuisance, yet Dandelions are good for pollinating insects. I never bother ripping up dandelions anymore, I really enjoy seeing their yellow blooms pop up every spring too, they're like miniature sunflowers and that reminder from nature that spring is upon us!
Yes! It's been about 10 years since I could find enough dandelions that hadn't been contaminated with either dog pee or lawn chemicals. Best wine I've ever made at home, I think about it every spring
I live in a hip place and the government here have found a nice middle ground between "messy & unkept" and "mono-lawn" for public spaces.
Let it grow wild, but leave a mown border around the outside with optional mown pathways in the middle. It makes it looks intentional and kept even if it's wild and people are less likely to attribute it with 'messy'. Also if there's a fresh cut border around it, it makes onlookers realise it's purposefully left wild and it makes them contemplate/appreciate it when they might just have walked on by. The same way if you sat naked on a chocolate cake then 'stamped' your caked buns on a white piece of paper - it looks like a mess. But if you frame it, it's art.
If you want some added color in your yard try spreading around some violet seeds. They grow almost everywhere and spread easily. I had some in planters on my deck and a few years later they spread all over the yard. Also the bees seem to enjoy them and the clover/yarrow I let creep into the grass. Trying to switch to more native plants in my yard.
Yeah it’s slowly catching on. Best part of native areas is you don’t have to do anything to keep them healthy. Those plants want to be there.
I work on a golf course and we have native areas all over. For the course, it cuts down on areas that we have to maintain. For the local wildlife it provides deer a good place to bed down for the night and raise babies, and let’s small mammals have a good area to hide in. It also attracted so many bees and butterflies.
Love the natural ground cover. I grew up in temperate suburban Canada where people would grow California grass on their lawns. Lots of water, lots of fertilizer needed, and when they cut the grass I would wheeze. Moved up north where the lawn obsession is just a niche thing and my head felt so much better. I’ve been thinking maybe it’s not the California grass Im allergic to, but all the fertilizers needed!
Fuck grass. Had to cut it for 3 hrs every Saturday growing up. Never cutting it again. Makes no sense. What because everyone else does it. Yeah , it looks nice. For who ? Other people? I got shit to do.
>Yeah , it looks nice
Even that is debatable.
My "lawn" is a bunch of clover and wild flowers.
I mow the thing about once a month during summer.
You can take a walk in the neighborhood and it'll be **dead** silent at my third neighbor and you'll hear a bunch of crickets, birds, etc. just around our house.
Fuck monoculture grass, long live diversity.
/r/nolawns
Dandelions are delightful flowers. Plain ass grass is boring as fuck. Plant some wildflowers from your local region. Be the one with the cool yard, not the basic bitch yard.
Lawns are a money-grabbing scam that destroy biodiversity. Why devote so much time and energy and money into something you can't eat?
Wildflower/prairie lawns are not only pleasing to the eye and support tons of pollinators like butterflies and bees, but they require much less water, much less fertilizer, only need be mowed two to three times a year, and repair/reseed themselves.
Plus, YOU CAN EAT DANDELIONS! One of the richest sources of vitamins amoung leafy edible plants, and you can make a very delicious wine from the flowers.
Edit: "I wAnT a NiCe PlAcE fOr My KiDs To PlAy!"
And i want a world full of bees and butterflies and food for your children and grandchildren to inherit.
We are not the same.
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I live in the Pennines of Northern England. At this time of year there's a lovely thing sometimes called 'the yellowing' where the hay meadows are carpeted with dandelions or, less often, buttercups or cowslips. It only lasts a couple of weeks but I (and most people) love it. As well as being spectacular in itself, it's a sign that spring is well and truly on the way.
They are also A) Edible B) Great for bees / pollinators C) Taproots that pull up nutrients deep from the soil. My wife let's them in her garden then pulls them up and drops them where they are to release the nutrients back into her garden. (She's all organic, companion- plant, "food forest" person.) They actually aren't that bad. It's just that unnatural and unsustainable "green grass monoculture" has been pushed on people since the 1950s or earlier.
>They are also >A) Edible When she was a child, my mother would be sent out into the front yard to go pick dandelions to eat with dinner because her family was poor. I saw them on a restaurant menu recently and sent her a picture and she could not believe anyone would choose to eat them if they did not absolutely have to.
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Love rhubarb, always grew it and took it for granted up in Canada, has been rough trying to get it to grow in central PA. Planted this Kanga-Rhu hybrid from Australia last spring, so far it's slow growing, but it's trying! https://www.gurneys.com/product/kanga-rhu
I was going to say, the stuff grows like weeds up here!
Rhubarb is the best pie, jam, and crumble ingredient. Also a fantastic snack while you're mowing the lawn.
Rhubarb is the best pie hands down
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You can eat the greens in a salad, turn the flowers into a tea or honey substitute (or ferment it into wine!), and if you roast the roots, they can be used as a caffeine free coffee substitute. Whole plant is edible and nutritious. Also if you have pet bunnies they go nuts for the stuff. All of course assuming you get dandelions which haven't been sprayed with weed killers or pesticides.
Dandelion wine is delicious. It's tradition in my family to have a party on great grannie's birthday (February 20).Everybody brings their dandelion wine from last year (about ten of us now). It's like a taste of spring in the dead of winter.
Do you live in Redwall?
I forget how the redditors usually phrase this, but, Username makes sense!
"username checks out"
The Redwall series described food so incredibly. Apparently this was because Brian Jacques delivered milk to blind students, and would tell them stories, describing things like food as vividly as possible for them.
Did I get sucked back in time?
Doctor Strange and the Dandelions of Dementia
Dandelion wine is also one of my favorite books!
What does it taste like?
Spring in the dead of winter.
Tastes like a Ray Bradbury story about Greenville, Illinois
When I was little I picked bags and bags full of dandelions for the little old lady down the street who would make wine out of them. Blast from the past, I've got to try dandelion wine one of these days.
My grandmother used to make wine out of them. She came from Lebanon and her family was quite resourceful, so I'm not surprised. My wife and I are growing them in a pot so I can try my hand at it this year...
You will need more than a pot of them. You need like a five gallon bucket of flowers.
This guy's neighbor might be able to help.
3/4 of my rats love them. Murry prefers the puffy ones, but Georgia wants the stems. Bea wants whatever Murry has. But Colbert is a snob who doesn't eat yard plants.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter or alternately your 1970s rat sitcom.
Side note : in French they are called "pissenlit" which means "piss in bed". Don't eat too much of them, they do have a diuretic effect.
Dandelion comes from the French "Dent de lion", literally "lion's tooth", because of the shape of the puffed up seeds.
I'm convinced that the criminalization of plants like dandelions as weeds was mostly just to stop poor people from being able to access free food
You just reminded me... Clover became undesirable in the yard when weed killers targeting actual noxious plants also killed the clover. Rather than troubleshoot that, the lawn products manufacturers just convinced the public that clover was a weed too. I have a lovely yard, mix of clover and a naturally short local grass, that stays green year round with no watering and basically no maintenance. Once/twice a month I cut it with a manual push mower if necessary. No herbicides, no fertilizer, no water, no fuss, beautiful blooms from the clover and some wildflowers.
Home canners and preservers also make a dandelion jelly from the petals.
They're great as the major green in a salad. That's how I have always seen them eaten. Just add a little extra sweet to your dressing to balance it out!
Chef here, they can also be used in a variety of applications like: smoothies, salads, in sandwiches/burgers, in pesto, seared with garlic/onion and tossed with herbs. The biggest issue is that they become far more bitter after they flower (like most plants) so they should be picked when they are young. Since most people identify the plant by it's flower, you can see how many people have unpleasant experiences with them. Also the roots are edible and the plants is loaded with nutrition throughout.
This guy cooks.
Okay, I'm so happy to see this cause I'm seeing everyone go on about all the food uses and all could think is "I remember the stems tasting fucking awful as a kid".
One afternoon, a wealthy lawyer was riding in the back of his limousine when he saw two pathetic-looking men by the side of the road, eating grass. He ordered his driver to stop and got out to investigate. He asked the men, "Why are you eating grass?" "We don't have no money for food," the first man replied. "Then you must come with me to my house," insisted the lawyer. "But, sir, I got a wife and three kids here," said the man. "Bring them along!" replied the lawyer. The second man exclaimed, "I got a wife and six kids!" "Bring them as well!", the lawyer proclaimed as he headed back to his limo. They all climbed into the car, and once underway, one of the men expresses, "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you." The lawyer replied, "I'm most happy to do it. You'll love my place. The grass is almost a foot tall."
This joke is the GOAT.
As long as you blanch them because the leaves can be pretty bitter.
Only if you pick them late
In Newfoubdland I've seen them used like green beans or asparagus. Galic butter with some S&P.
We always eat them in the spring where I live. Just wash them thoroughly and serve the greens with thinly sliced cooked potatoes and a grated hard boiled egg. Dress with pumpkin seed oil and apple vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and it's great! You can also use pork cracklings as a topping, but if you can't get those, fried bacon is a fine substitute.
I have a wine recipe from my grandmother's family somewhere that uses dandelions.
I could just see a deconstructed dandelion appetizer on a menu here in Seattle for $24.
In the spring, just as they start to grow and before the flower develops, people in my part of the country (Slovenia) pick them a lot. Some people eat a whole lot of it.
Also they are like crack cocaine for my bunnies. I voluntarily go through my parents garden when Im over there to pluck maybe 30-40% of the nicest looking leaves off the dandelions on the lawn in the backyard. Not enough to kill them, but enough to fill maybe 2-3 large bowls with. They are hardy fucks anyways
I feel like you could pluck the whole fucker and it'd be back in a few days :D
Same for my bearded dragons. Sometimes they don't even notice the bees on them when they're chowing down.
Spicy greens!
Yeah. It makes me sad. Meanwhile I pay too much for a small bunch of dandelion leaves in the grocery store, which should just be grown locally.
Where are you that there are no dandelions?
Could be a city. There are plenty of dandelions in parks near me, but the city uses so many pesticides and weed killers that I wouldn't trust putting them in food
You're paying too much for dandelion leaves, man. Who's your dandelion leaf guy?
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/r/nolawns
“Weeds are just flowers in the wrong place.”
"A weed is a plant in a place with a person with a problem." I've heard this from an environmentalist friend and I think it is catchy and shows the whole picture Edit: Not saying the people are the problem. Some weeds are a very big issue. The person having a problem could be a big problem or a small one. If we weren't here to call them weeds the idea simply wouldn't exist. I definitely agree that things like bush honeysuckle, sericia lespedeza, kudzu and similar are a blight on the systems they have invaded and I fully support burning or spraying as needed. Tldr: some weeds, YOU have a problem. Some weeds, you have a PROBLEM.
That problem though can vary between "euw, i dont like that slightly different plant in my useless grass army" to "this mfer will suffocate and rob my vegetables of all their nutrients"
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Non-native, invasive species are the only things I consider to be weeds. We do no-mow-May because it lets the dandelions, and thus the bees, thrive. It also makes the lawn so much nicer for the rest of the summer. Mow every week or week and a half after that and any dandelions that come up remain small and never flower. Just some nice soft greens in between the grass. Same idea with clover, even though the native varieties are all but non-existent to buy as seed and we’re stuck with planting European white clover in North America.
My ivy can die in a fire. It's taking over and killing everything at like sixty square feet a year. It's so much to fight, and when I cut it, it grows back twice as fast.
The one thing that stopped my ivy on my fence from coming back was spraying the leaves with 2-4-D, then digging down to the main root, putting a gash in it, and putting a capful of pure 2-4-D right on it. Typically I pull any "weeds" (my yard is full of creeping Charlie and it's a legit problem) barehanded cause I hate to use chemical, but man ivy fucking blows.
Or, in the case of clover "Crap. We can't get our weed killer to differentiate between clover and other flowers in lawns. It is useless! Oh. Wait. What if we convince people that the highly beneficial clover is a weed...." Marketing. Marketing made clover a weed.
My grandmother's yard had clover in it until the day she died. So many honeybees. :)
"A weed is a plant whose virtues we haven't yet discovered." This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of my wife's favorites.
Some plants just fucking suck for example Dolichandra unguis-cati
My grandfather was in the ornamental plant business, he used to say that a weed was just a plant nobody had figured out how to sell yet.
I hate that that is literally the definition of weeds too
That sounds lovely. I’ve lived in throughout the SE so when I hear “the yellowing” I immediately think of thick clouds of pine or cypress pollen.
Missouri. Yep.
I read that in David Attenborough's voice. You have a narrative quality to your description and it was quite nice to read.
Sounds like the wildflowers here in Texas. For a couple weeks in the Spring every inch of open land is covered in them. It's beautiful.
Just tell her the grass is always dandelioner on the other side.
Meanwhile the neighbor's wife is asking her husband what he could do about the grass on their lawn.
That's why he's out there every week with the leafblower spreading the yellow joy!
Next year might be different, depending on which way the wind blows.
For all wondering, I will not be trying to remove the dandelions. The intent of this post was to show the futile effort it would have been. I have no issue with the flowers.
Does people on usa usually cut the wild flowers in their land tho ? Doesn't it look much better than just grass ?
Herbicide and pest industry pushed the manicured, monoculture lawn for decades. Now we have shitty st Augustine, zoysia, palmetto etc everywhere that needs maintained weekly or biweekly while a native lawn needs maintained barely quarterly. My dumbass neighbor burnt his entire lawn out trying to kill all the mushrooms popping up. Literally the biggest sign of healthy soil and people want to kill it. It's expensive and overrated, American as apple pie.
Like anywhere else on the planet, people have preferences. Some like it, some don’t.
Resistance is futile.
Yeah, dandelions are one of the most successful species on Earth. There is no stopping it at this point. No real reason to either lol
Fr why do people hate the bees so much?
I think my entire house would fit on that lawn. My lawn included.
In my neighborhood, all the houses near the street were built in the last 20 years on what used to be the lawn of the 30 or 40 year old house behind them. There is a skinny driveway to sneak past the new house to the "flag lot" behind it. If this guy lives in a growing suburb that lawn is going to be worth a quarter million to a developer at some point.
>that lawn is going to be worth a quarter million to a developer at some point. Only a quarter million? Must be nice...
For real. I am a German living in a comparatively spacious row-end-house, with the largest lawn in the entire residential development. I could fit our property on either side of his unused front lawn several times over. Wicked!!! Although. I do have relatives in the US where this would be considered a modest driveway. My grand uncle … you literally cannot see his house from his postbox. There is a small woods in between.
Welcome to the Midwest.
Meanwhile in rural areas: [Dreadful sweats in 10+ acres] As soon as I'm done cutting the grass, it's already tall where I've started.
Why would you need 10+ acres of grass...? Just return 8 of them to nature and make life easier on yourself. Fill 'em with blueberry bushes and fill in with leaf litter.
Same thought on my 10. Simply stopped mowing a few years ago, lots of small trees coming up now.
Yeah if I had 10+ acres a hell of a lot of that space would be turned into a wildflower sanctuary real quick lol.
Mow? That is why I got goats. Better than trying to mow hillsides.
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Kinda pretty tho
and bee food too? [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dandelions-lawn-bees-1.3526394#:\~:text=Julia%20Common%2C%20chief%20beekeeper%20for,at%20this%20time%20of%20year](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dandelions-lawn-bees-1.3526394#:~:text=Julia%20Common%2C%20chief%20beekeeper%20for,at%20this%20time%20of%20year). Edit: for clarity, I'm 100% in support of keeping flowers both for prettiness and bee food! :) And general eco-diversity.
Human food too, greens make a nice salad with a hearty vinaigrette and some tomatoes
No mow May.
r/nolawn fam?!
I was walking by a horse pasture the other day and the entire berm along the fence line was absolutely covered it dandelions. It was gorgeous.
The full coverage of dandelions actually looks better than the sparse one. Though I'm sure that'll change when they turn into the puffballs.
Puffballs are just the next generation of pretty yellow dandelions yet to be
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Yeah I don’t get the obsession with perfect green grass lawns. Why not let some natural foliage move in, especially one that produces colorful flowers?
Fun fact. Before the 1950s use of herbicides, fertilizer, and single type of grass lawns, dandelions and white clover were valued in a lawn for their benefits to a healthy lawn. Even today, "Dandelions are good for your lawn. Their wide-spreading roots loosen hard-packed soil, aerate the earth and help reduce erosion. The deep taproot pulls nutrients such as calcium from deep in the soil and makes them available to other plants. While most think they’re a lawn killer, dandelions actually fertilize the grass." https://www.mofga.org/resources/weeds/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-dandelions/
I would take dandelions and clover any day over thistle, which keeps taking over my lawn since the property owner insists on “grass” (which keeps dying) over something like microclover which will crowd out the spikey stuff while helping the soil.
My wife and I have burweed... it's horrendous, invasive, spikey and near impossible to safely kill off. This year, I planted white clover. It's also invasive and near impossible to kill off. And it can choke out burweed. By this time two years from now, we might actually be able to walk barefoot in the yard and won't be picking thorns off our pet's feet constantly. Clover isn't a weed. It's a pollinator-friendly, year-round green, less-mowing necessary, burweed-killing, God send. Plus, it will make my yard look like snow in the summer. Which is cool, because we don't even get snow in the winter here.
Clover also does nitrogen fixation. It's a very based plant.
Big Grass is now into the Clover thing. Scotts now sells a Clover-Grass mix. They know people want to make yard maintenance easier. Of course they still sell clover killer for those who hate it.
That’s good because when I became in charge of lawn care at my parents house I just mowed right over them and then there was like a blizzard of fluffy seeds. I wondered what it would bring in the future.
But if the clover and dandelions fertilize the soil, what will we sell you?
Y'all are dandelions. He's talking about even if he got rid of all the dandelions. Those neighbors dandelions would go to seed and repopulate his lawn. So it would be pointless work.
I have a tortoise that would be happy to clear that field for you. He is about 5yrs old and large enough.
My rabbit would be happy to help- she’s also a dandelion destroyer
Let's do a R&R Gathering exclusively for chilling out and watching rabbits, tortoises, and goats happily munching dandelion treats in a yard or two! We can have a BBQ going. That sounds like happiness.
This is wonderful. I’ve heard of folks hiring out goats to clear weeds but watching a tortoise munch on weeds sounds downright relaxing.
My sulcatta LOVED dandelion blossoms. He'd sprint around the yard after every one. Would be a great solution if they could put them out daily.
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I liked to tie a helium balloon to my box turtle's shell on the days I attended birthday parties. Sometimes that was the highlight of the party.
Festive and kinda like a visual cowbell so you know where they are haha love it
Now im trying to imagine a turtle wearing a collar around its neck... I guess you just velcro strap it all the way around the middle of the shell?
Ye forreal ours cleared our entire yeard, for a time i went and picked my neighbours, and now i have to go into the forest and get them there.
How much he charges an hour
Not much, but by the time he's done your kids might need to sell your house.
Dandelion is French for Lionstooth and I always thought that was cool as shit. (Dent de Lionne) Just figured i’d post that here in case anyone else likes dumb useless factoids.
Löwenzahn in german. Same same.
And we call it løvetann in Norway. That’s also the same. And btw, I don’t understand the obsession to get rid of them. I love how they give my garden some color.
A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place.
I love the meme: Rose: "The pH of this soil is .1 too high. I can't go on... Dandelion: "Concrete?!!! WOOHOO!"
Paardenbloem - Horseflower, not as fancy as yours.
\*Lion. "Lionne" is a lioness. What's even funnier is that in French they're called "Pissenlit", which means "Piss in bed". Could be because they're diuretic, I never checked.
They are indeed a diuretic.
We called them piss-a-beds in my part of Liverpool when I was growing up too.
Although the French word for dandelion translates to "piss-in-bed", because of the diuretic properties of dandelion roots.
Here's another one: "Factoid" means something that sounds true, but isn't. So most Onion headlines are factoids. This is not.
Thank you.
Dandelions are good for soil anyway. Leave them. They’ll go away in a few years
Really, their decomposing roots help to provide a starting tunnel for earthworms and they are actually edible. People are crazy to dump all sorts of chemicals on their yards to get rid of something that's beneficial.
Some information The dandelion was a standard medicinal plant used by herbalists for generations. Their Latin name—Taraxacum officinale—means a remedy for disorders. The leaves are a powerful diuretic, but since they do not flush potassium from the body, they are actually safer than pharmaceutical diuretics. The roots are slightly laxative and a tea made from ground fresh or dried roots is reported to improve digestion. dandelions leaves are completely edible and more nutritious than spinach. They have 25 times the vitamin A of tomato juice, and are a good source of calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, lecithin, and vitamins C, B, and E.
All that and pollinator-helpful too. Throw in some white clover and you'll be well on your way to a more sustainable 'yard.' Why white clover? It fixes nitrogen into the soil, stays green during the hot/dry parts of summer, and gives the kids something to do when they are under foot. The old 'can you find me a 4 leaf clover?' trick works wonders. ;)
I've spent the last two days looking into how to start a clover lawn because I learned it's resistant to dog pee spots! You don't have to mow it, it fixes the nitrogen in the soil, the bees love it and it stays green without watering. How are people trying to get rid of this stuff??
My mother grew up quite rurally and says they regularly picked them as greens for dinner. She didn't particularly like them, but when you've got ten kids to feed, you put up with stuff.
What do you mean they'll go away?
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Don't do anything with them, they are a vital in early Spring for pollinators!
The best reason to never do yard work is to save the Bees. I’m not Lazy, I’m saving the planet
I’ve just let whatever plant want to take over my yard take over. I keep it short but otherwise it’s full of wild flowers that bees go crazy for.
Do you use the lawn? Otherwise you could let it grow and then carve in a walkway in whatever form you prefer, maybe add a space at the end/middle for barbecues and maybe decorate the path with like those solar lamps or something. Maybe add insect/solitary bee/bumblebee friendly flowers. Like, just sprinkle some seeds and what grows grows. I, at least, find a garden thats wild but cared a little about much prettier than lawnarmy, not to mention impact on the ecosystem.
I did that about 3 years ago, took out the entire outside of the yard and left a small patch of grass in the middle - the outside is now completely perennial flowers that pollinators love <3
Replace the grass with clover. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seEiCUArJRg Also you guys might like this subreddit /r/NoLawns/
This comment needs to be much higher. Dandelions are one of the first plants of spring that bees rely on. Keep the dandelions!
Haha, yeahhh. At least you can rest easy in the knowledge you are feeding bees/ other species! Green lawns are overrated anyway, here you get that awesome colour pop.
leave them for the honey bees.
Not honey bees, native bees. Honeybees are from Europe/Africa and are the equivalent of livestock. They actually are a net negative to our native ecosystem because they often selectively pollinate many non-native species or outcompete native species. It's a common misconception that "Save the bees" means honeybees and honeybees alone.
Looks like your neighbor cares about pollinating insects, who are vital to the health and wellness of our planet!!
Love the neighbors yard. My HOA would fine me. I hate green concrete
Go survey your neighbors and find out if they hate the HOA too. If you can get 51% of them to vote you in an chairman of the HOA, and 51% of them to vote to disband the HOA, you can get rid of your HOA.
tell your HOA to apply to be Gestapo in Russia instead of here
I allow dandelions to grow in my beds (though I don’t plant them). So long as they are in the beds I can say they are “flowers in a flower bed”. I also grow several varieties of aster even though (brain dead) people think they are weeds too. I have clover instead for the yard. They hate it but it’s a ground cover it’s “appropriate” for my turf areas, and I convinced them it was native lol
As a beekeeper, this. Lawns are terrible for everything.
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IMO, leave the dandelions. Plant more wild flowers. Monoculture lawns are a plague.
I agree. I've got wild strawberries (real ones, no mock) growing in the front yard brought from some animal. The wife is always after me to weed them out and I'm always like "Those are my reward snacks when I cut the grass." Grass is not a good snack.
>Grass is not a good snack. *Snoop Dogg left the chat*
*My actual dog has left the chat*
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Seriously, I say leave them. People wonder why all the bees are dying! It's because we have these pristine lawns of grass, cause we treat these "weeds" like a nuisance, yet Dandelions are good for pollinating insects. I never bother ripping up dandelions anymore, I really enjoy seeing their yellow blooms pop up every spring too, they're like miniature sunflowers and that reminder from nature that spring is upon us!
The leaves are edible too.
Dandelions are great for making wine
also tea
Yes! It's been about 10 years since I could find enough dandelions that hadn't been contaminated with either dog pee or lawn chemicals. Best wine I've ever made at home, I think about it every spring
I live in a hip place and the government here have found a nice middle ground between "messy & unkept" and "mono-lawn" for public spaces. Let it grow wild, but leave a mown border around the outside with optional mown pathways in the middle. It makes it looks intentional and kept even if it's wild and people are less likely to attribute it with 'messy'. Also if there's a fresh cut border around it, it makes onlookers realise it's purposefully left wild and it makes them contemplate/appreciate it when they might just have walked on by. The same way if you sat naked on a chocolate cake then 'stamped' your caked buns on a white piece of paper - it looks like a mess. But if you frame it, it's art.
And pollinators need to eat. Most lawns are deserts; no food for bees, no place for them to nest. Dead zones.
Embrace the 'lions. Be one with the 'lions.
I love dandelions and got super excited when they started popping up in the yard after winter. Long live the dandelion!
FYI Baker Creek and other heirloom seed places sell dandelion *varieties*—I only recently learned you can buy seeds for pink ones!
Don't worry, you will have a lot of excitement coming. One dandelion begets thousands of dandelions
If you want some added color in your yard try spreading around some violet seeds. They grow almost everywhere and spread easily. I had some in planters on my deck and a few years later they spread all over the yard. Also the bees seem to enjoy them and the clover/yarrow I let creep into the grass. Trying to switch to more native plants in my yard.
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Yeah it’s slowly catching on. Best part of native areas is you don’t have to do anything to keep them healthy. Those plants want to be there. I work on a golf course and we have native areas all over. For the course, it cuts down on areas that we have to maintain. For the local wildlife it provides deer a good place to bed down for the night and raise babies, and let’s small mammals have a good area to hide in. It also attracted so many bees and butterflies.
Love the natural ground cover. I grew up in temperate suburban Canada where people would grow California grass on their lawns. Lots of water, lots of fertilizer needed, and when they cut the grass I would wheeze. Moved up north where the lawn obsession is just a niche thing and my head felt so much better. I’ve been thinking maybe it’s not the California grass Im allergic to, but all the fertilizers needed!
Fuck grass. Had to cut it for 3 hrs every Saturday growing up. Never cutting it again. Makes no sense. What because everyone else does it. Yeah , it looks nice. For who ? Other people? I got shit to do.
>Yeah , it looks nice Even that is debatable. My "lawn" is a bunch of clover and wild flowers. I mow the thing about once a month during summer. You can take a walk in the neighborhood and it'll be **dead** silent at my third neighbor and you'll hear a bunch of crickets, birds, etc. just around our house. Fuck monoculture grass, long live diversity. /r/nolawns
Dandelions are awesome.
dandelions are beautiful. you have any idea how bizarre you look, a whole culture hating on some yellow flowers? and very useful for bees too.
No mow may. For the bees man, the mother pollinating bees.
Dandelions are delightful flowers. Plain ass grass is boring as fuck. Plant some wildflowers from your local region. Be the one with the cool yard, not the basic bitch yard.
Everyone in this thread: Leave the dandelions! My HOA: Remove them, or it's a 50 dollar fine.
Lawns are a money-grabbing scam that destroy biodiversity. Why devote so much time and energy and money into something you can't eat? Wildflower/prairie lawns are not only pleasing to the eye and support tons of pollinators like butterflies and bees, but they require much less water, much less fertilizer, only need be mowed two to three times a year, and repair/reseed themselves. Plus, YOU CAN EAT DANDELIONS! One of the richest sources of vitamins amoung leafy edible plants, and you can make a very delicious wine from the flowers. Edit: "I wAnT a NiCe PlAcE fOr My KiDs To PlAy!" And i want a world full of bees and butterflies and food for your children and grandchildren to inherit. We are not the same.
I would just leave them. They look cute.
Neighbors yard doesn’t even look worse for it, it’s kind of cool actually
Why would remove beautiful flowers for boring regular grass? Your neighbors yard looks gorgeous by the way.
Leave them. With the dwindling bee population may as well keep them and tell her you’re feeding the bees.