A Deluge of Dandelions

as well as brambles, buttercups and bindweed

I love dandelions. I love their sunshine yellow discs. I love their fluffy pompom seed heads. I love how every part of them is useful, and they are good for the soil they grow in. But they are taking over my garden, and I don’t know what to do.

I have only recently discovered gardening. With the exception of two years of experimentation with vegetable gardening before we had children, I have left the care of our green spaces entirely up to my husband. He is a talented gardener, so while the children were small, it was easier just to let him get on with it - with some interference from me regarding using chemicals of any kind to encourage growth, manage weeds and deter pests.

When we moved into our current house, eight and a half years ago, there was no garden, just a very large patch of bare earth with a couple of ailing fruit trees at one end. With the help of a friend, my husband levelled and seeded a lawn, and over the subsequent years, gradually filled the flowerbeds with grasses, seedum and asters that required minimal care and filled the space. All the while, respecting my strong views on chemicals by periodically digging out the dandelions that grew prolifically on the disturbed soil.

Recently, I have begun to get more involved in the garden. I spend the most time in it, and I have quite strong opinions on how I want it to look and how we should manage it. This year, we invested in some power tools to help me with the larger jobs that I could not manage otherwise, and I officially took over responsibility for the maintenance and care of the garden. I am gradually replacing low-maintenance, space-filling plants with a mixture of flowering shrubs and small trees that bring colour and interest into the garden. I am slowly working through the flowerbeds, removing weeds and other plants that are not where I expected.

This weekend, I find myself slap bang in the middle of No-Mow-May, the guinea pigs (a convenient natural workaround to not mowing the lawn for a month) have not been outside as much as usual, as we are in the middle of pulling down the conservatory and the noise and dust are too much for them.

Consequently, I am left with a patch of grass that is almost entirely dandelion clocks. This is where life gets tricky. I have no idea what I should do. I empathise with dandelions as misunderstood and often maligned. But I have grown up with the concept that lawns should be a blanket of green, and that dandelions are at best a nuisance and at worst a destroyer of this grassy idyll.

It was only when manicured lawns became popular in the 18th century that dandelions began to be thought of as weeds; before that, they were prized for their medicinal purposes. Their yellow flowers are joyful and provide much-needed food for our pollinating insects at the start of the season when other sources of food are not available. The whole plant can be eaten, although dandelion root is a very acquired taste, not to mention that our guinea pigs love the leaves.

I think for now, I will stop worrying about the dandelions and return to the prickly job of digging out and disentangling the brambles and bindweed that continually sneak into the garden.