pollinator week

Dealing with Dandelions in the Garden

Dan This Land of Ours

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Cathy Isom gives you the good, as well as the bad, about dealing with dandelions in your yard or garden. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.

Dealing with Dandelions in the Garden

These yellow puffs grow nearly anywhere and spread rapidly, so prepare yourself for the work ahead.

The dandelion is a perennial flower capable of thriving in poor soils. Mature dandelions transform into lightweight balls of seed fluff that hitchhike to neighboring green spaces thanks to gusts of wind. This seeding process means that dandelions are quick to spread and difficult to contain to one area. 

Here are a few reasons to keep them around. They’re nutritious, and you can eat them. They’re fun for kids to play with and, bees and other beneficial insects love them.  Birds also enjoy dandelion seeds.

Some reasons to get rid of them: they’re ugly, invasive, and cause allergies.  The key to ridding your lawn of dandelions is killing the taproot, which can grow up to three feet underground.

Ways to eradicate dandelions include burning them, using natural herbicides, or pulling them.

I’m Cathy Isom…

Image credit: Bee feeding on a dandelion/by Zden?k Chalupský from Pixabay