Dandelions

[Elaine]

I am absolutely amazed at the profusion of dandelions this year. Everywhere I go, every grassy place is carpeted with bright, golden yellow dandelions....I can't recall ever seeing so many in previous years. They look lovely but...ye gods! Wait until all those dandelion clocks are shedding their seed!
Cheers.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Elaine, i have noticed exactly the same round here.

Maybe it's a sign!

[macmac]

About dandelions,my daughter has just got a pup (beautiful Alaskan Malmout) she(the pup not my daughter)keeps eating dandelions in their garden.They don't want to use weed killer obviously and I'd heard a teaspoon of salt at the centre works.Does anyone know if this is effective or not.Thanks

[Elaine]

Can't say I've heard of that one Macmac. It seems to me, that dandelions are the most persistent and hardy of our "wild flowers". In my previous house, there was one plant which came up through the tarmac path outside my front garden, every year, for 15 years! I had used weedkillers, bleach, boiling water and nothing had any effect....it even survived after the council had dug up and resurfaced the paths. I had dug up, what I thought was, all of the root too, after they had finished removing all the old tarmac.

The next spring, I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the familiar leaves erupting through the new tarmac........

Those roots must have gone down yards for it to keep on re-appearing all that time!
cheers.

[Elaine]

Dear OH....a sign? of what ......?!

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Elaine, that's the exciting bit, we won't know until it happens.

[alan refail]

Dear Elaine, that's the exciting bit, we won't know until it happens.

Probably this........

[glallotments]

I've noticed loads of dandelions for a couple of years or more now. Along the sides of the M! near us the verges are just a strip of yellow. The strip is only a couple of feet wide as the dandelions don't seem to stray far from the rooad side I guess the traffic blows the seeds along.

We get a lot in our grass paths too. After a few mowings the plant seems to adapt and its flowers are almost flat to the ground. It's a survivor!

[JohnN]

I find the best way to keep dandelions in check is by going round just before I cut the lawns and inserting a forked weed tool beside each flowering plant. A sharp pull on the handle and there is usually a 'click' noise and the plant comes up with about two inches of stalk attached. Of course this doesn't get the root up, but it stops them seeding and they take a week or so to re-grow. It seems to discourage them and it's quite a satisfying and easy job!
John N

[alan refail]

Les salades ameres d'hiver.jpg (48.42 KiB) Viewed 5306 times

Put a bucket over them, blanch them, eat them.

http://www.frenchgardening.com/aupotage ... 2116217056

[Nature's Babe]

Dandelion

Golden
French - dent de lion.
Seeds fly where the wind wills
from wondrous symmetry, life starts
anew.

[Monika]

I love dandelions - much prettier and more natural than the ranks of daffodils on roadsides!

Just have a look at a single, beautiful dandelion flower: if they were rarer we would fall over ourselves to buy the seeds.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Nature's Babe, some lovely words.

[Nature's Babe]

Thank you Oldherbaceous, i have about a couple of dozen cinquain poems, all on different wildflowers. In the hedgerows at the moment primroses, speedwell, daisy's, aconites, violets, and of course dandelions !

[madasafish]

At a time when bee populations are under pressure due to the verroa mite killing them, dandelions form a great source of pollen and nectar early in the year.

Bees feed the pollen to the bee pupae and of course convert the nectar to honey.

We have lots of dandelions every year in the fields and verges...