Picture this – you are driving through the neighborhood. You see nothing but?trees with perfect umbrellas, plush green lawns with precise striping, and then you come to the one house that has a dandelion field and a little grass in between. It’s out of control, why don’t they kill them all?!
Dandelions, or Irish Daisies as we call them have become such a nuisance that nobody wants to see emerge from the ground. But when did we develop such a stigma?for?dandelions? Are they harmful??The short answer is no.
Over the years I’ve done a lot of research, and trial and error with our own lawn. The only real reason for removing all dandelions is to have the picture perfect lawn we see on commercials or lawn care product bags when walking down the home and garden section at the nearest Big Box store. Marketing is effective. Unfortunately, Americans put down an estimated of 27 million pounds of these chemicals each year. Note that a good number of these chemicals are not only banned in other countries for being harmful, but they are linked to cancer, reproductive, immunological and neurological problems.
I am not an organic nut, but I can pick out almost any lawn that’s been sprayed with chemicals by the hue of green. From afar they look great, but up close you can see the lawn is not all that healthy, and is clearly dependent on the chemical treatments it receives.
My family recently had a get-together and the house was full of guests. Countless times I heard “did you fertilize?” or “who sprays your lawn?” or “your grass is such a deep green and so plush, how do you do it?”. My one response to all of those questions is, no, I don’t spray our lawn with chemicals and that’s why it’s so healthy.
So again I ask, do all the dandelions need to die? My parents never used a chemical on our lawn when we were growing up, and we turned out just fine. In fact, as children we loved picking the dandelions and playing the “head popped off” game.
Are you paying hard-earned money to compromise the health of your lawn, yourself, your kids and pets. The point of this article is to list some tips to manage the dandelions in your lawn. Here they are!
- Mow high. Keep your grass at 3″, this alone will improve your lawn’s health and naturally smother weeds or dandelions.
- Handpick. If you have a lot of dandelions, it will help in the long run if you pick some.?Fiskars makes a wonderful tool to pluck weeds, no bending over necessary!
