I want my lawn to be covered in dandelions. I absolutely love them.
Dandelions being seen as weeds is nothing short of bizarre to me. Most people’s lawns are ugly masses of boring, uniform green, shaved down to the root by noisy, fragile machines that lose wheels at the worst time and get stuck if the ground is less flat than what we want the pandemic curve to be.
Lawns used to be covered in clover, in varieties of plants, until fertilizers were discovered to kill most things but grass, and, rather than risk losing customers, fertilizer companies decided to frame all lawn plants other than grass as ‘weeds’ and undesireable. So now we sit here with bald and boring lawns and bees vanishing from lack of pollination plants.
I’m not really a gardener, but I wonder how a lot of those green of thumb feel about the lovely yellow blossoms that show up every summer, turning into white seeds that blow away in the wind and lead to hilarious coming-of-age movie scenes.
Maybe it’s my love of bright yellow as a colour, or maybe it’s just my annoyance at maintenance rituals that seem pointless. Seeing a whole field of dandelions makes me want to put the whippertrimmers and lawnmowers away until they’ve blown away, or until the grass is high enough that the township starts declaring my home abandoned.
Dandelions are edible, and can also be made into wine. If you have to cut them, why not make salads (which can be disgustingly bitter if one isn’t careful, but I drink black coffee at an alarming rate, I’ll be fine). Wikipedia also says that they can be used to make natural rubber, which is something worth deep-diving into that informational labyrinth for.
My only concern is that they present an invasive species; something someone with far more knowledge of plants might tell me. I do know that a yellow lawn is far more visually appealing than a green one, stands out more, and actually becomes homes to life-sustaining bees. It’s hard enough with all the things we’ve brought over from Europe that run wild on the continent, from cats to feral hogs.
Still, if it wasn’t for outside pressures, I’d just as soon let the little fellas grow.
