Dandelions - I cut this out of a magazine when I was a teen-

and although it is not how most of us garden lovers feel...I thought it was cute and would bring a smile to some of our faces as we wait for spring to arrive.

"Fulghum, Washington, and Dandelions"
from p. 65-67 of All I Ever Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum

Mr. Washington was a hard-core lawn freak. His yard and my yard blended together in an ambiguous fashion. Every year he was seized by a kind of herbicidal mania. He started fondling his weed-eater and mixing up vile potions in vats in his garage. It usually added up to trouble.

Sure enough, one morning I caught him over in my yard spraying dandelions.

"Didn't really think you'd mind," says he, righteously.

"Mind, mind!--you just killed my flowers," says I, with guarded contempt.

"Flowers?" he ripostes. "Those are weeds!" He points at my dandelions with utter disdain.

"Weeds," says I, "are plants growing where people don't want them. In other words," says I, "weeds are in the eye of the beholder. And as far as I am concerned, dandelions are not weeds--they are flowers!"

"Horse manure," says he, and stomps off home to avoid any taint of lunacy.
Now I happen to like dandelions a lot. They cover my yard each spring with fine yellow flowers, with no help from me at all. They mind their business and I mind mine. The young leaves make a spicy salad. The flowers add fine flavor and elegant color to a classic light wine. Toast the roots, grind and brew, and you have a palatable coffee. The tenderest shoots make a tonic tea. The dried mature leaves are high in iron, vitamins A and C, and make a good laxative. Bees favor dandelions, and the cooperative result is high-class honey.

Dandelions have been around for about thirty million years; there are fossils. The nearest relatives are lettuce and chicory. Formally classed as perennial herbs of the genus Taraxacum of the family aster-aceae. The name comes from the French for lion's tooth, dent de lion. Distributed all over Europe, Asia, and North America, they got there on their own. Resistant to disease, bugs, heat, cold, wind, rain, and human beings.

If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But they are everywhere and don't need us and kind of do what they please. So we call them "weeds," and murder them at every opportunity.

Well, I say they are flowers, by God, and pretty darn fine flowers at that. And I am honored to have them in my yard, where I want them. Besides, in addition to every other good thing about them, they are magic. When the flower turns to seed you can blow them off the stem, and if you blow just right and all those little helicopters fly away, you get your wish. Magic. Or if you are a lover, they twine nicely into a wreath for your friends hair.
I defy my neighbor to show me anything in his yard that compares with dandelions.
And if all that isn’t enough, consider this; Dandelions are free. Nobody ever complains about your picking them. You can have all you can carry away. Some weed!

Middlemamma wrote:
When the flower turns to seed you can blow them off the stem, and if you blow just right and all those little helicopters fly away, you get your wish. Magic.

Or you can blow those little helicopters over into Mr. Washington's yard.

If my memory doesn't fail me, dandelion were intentionally introduced into the United States by the early European immigrants who recognized its beneficial uses and wanted to have it around.

I've tried forever to convice people that dandelions are great... they look at me like I'm some strange creature from the bottom of the sea. Even took awhile to convice my husband that a green lawn was not a "green" lawn. I let him yank the weeds from the gravel area and he's content.

Learning that the bees love them was enough to convince me, although I've never been a lawn fanatic anyway. It never made sense to me to dump chemicals on an area where my pets/friends/kids would play.

One of my favorite early spring bouquets is a tiny vase of dandelion flowers and violets. The bright yellow and purple flowers and green foliage bring a smile to my face whenever I look at them.

Weeds, indeed!

Nothing tells me it is spring more than the grandbabies trying to make NaNa's nose yellow!

As they say, "one man's trash is another's treasure".
Or here in the Dallas area, "bermuda grass in the lawn good; bermuda grass in the garden bad"
Jane

janefss2002 wrote:As they say, "one man's trash is another's treasure".
Or here in the Dallas area, "bermuda grass in the lawn good; bermuda grass in the garden bad"
Jane

I have a sister (whylie) and brother(justin) in that area. They so love to call and pick on me when their are harvesting their gardens! But I still love my snow lol....

I think we are a rare club Cindi...but I am with you on that one. I lived in Northern AZ the last 13 years and I LOVE this 4 season gig.

middlemamma wrote:I think we are a rare club Cindi...but I am with you on that one. I lived in Northern AZ the last 13 years and I LOVE this 4 season gig.

I grew up in Texas, from Galveston to El Paso. My family moved to Iowa (original homeplace) when I was 13. I refused to go back when they went the week I turned 18! No way I was leaving Iowa to go to Dallas! I really did not like that town lol...I went back once in '82 for my brother's wedding. but I love my 4 seasons!

CindiLou wrote:Nothing tells me it is spring more than the grandbabies trying to make NaNa's nose yellow!

Thanks for that happy mental picture.

Selandra wrote:

I've tried forever to convice people that dandelions are great... they look at me like I'm some strange creature from the bottom of the sea. Even took awhile to convice my husband that a green lawn was not a "green" lawn. I let him yank the weeds from the gravel area and he's content.

Howdy Selandra:

BSFG (Before Square Foot Gardening) I purchased a lawn fertilizer made for dandelions. I must have used to much as it killed all of them.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

Wardin Wake wrote: BSFG (Before Square Foot Gardening) I purchased a lawn fertilizer made for dandelions. I must have used to much as it killed all of them

Ward, you are bad!

Bump

I love my dandelions!