Don’t forget the dreaded uroboros!
Make enough of this http://www.wellpreserved.ca/how-to-make-dandelion-wine-recipe/ and you won’t care anymore.
This is what I did, using a tool like that. It’s a ton of work the first time but then you just need to walk around once or twice a week looking for any new ones threatening to rise up. I’ve done nothing else (no fertilizer or anything) for my lawn but it looks very nice now.
Please research Bees and Roundup.
This is what I do. I don’t have to worry, then, about weed killers poisoning my other flowers, herbs, or lawn. Or me.
Get 'em early and you won’t have to pull out so many. You don’t actually have to remove the taproot (although that’s best). If you go after them every day and pluck the flowers before they turn into those puffballs of seeds, you’ll prevent them from reproducing.
I find great satisfaction in going over my lawn every day or so and uprooting the dandelions trying to establish a beachhead.
Google customizes results so your results may differ but the first non-ad link in that search takes me to an article titled “Study Finds Glyphosate and Acetamiprid to Have Relatively Low Toxicity for Honey Bees” published by those well-known Monsanto sycophants at the Entomological Society of America.
Oh this was my original approach for years. But now that we are going to have a fenced yard again for dogs, they make it nearly impossible to pick up the poop.
We don’t mow other than weed eat the ‘yard’ about once a year.
We have an African spur thighed tortoise. He LOVES dandelions and various other broadleaf weeds.
This gardener will go with that post so far.
But yeah, try to get the entire tap root (not always easy), so that it won’t grow back.
Because of environmental concerns, I try to avoid using round-up, but in those very rare instances where there’s no other option, I use it as infrequently and as sparingly as possible. (Usually for grass growing out of cracks in driveways/sidewalks.)
So I’ve always been told, but I['ve never had a problem with them growing back. I find that for most purposes, it suffices simply to get rid of the part above ground. I have a dandelion prod if I get really ambitious and want to get the whole root. I find, in many places, that the dandelion has a pretty weak hold on the ground, and pulling it up brings up the root as well.
I agree with the “root 'em out” approach. I’ve found that if you break the ground with a tip of a spade right next to the root nexus, the entire root will pull out rather easily. That is, if you go through the yard every day or so to catch them. If you let one grow for weeks into a monster, then, yeah, the taproot has a much stronger hold.
I am certainly not against chemicals, and do spray for other weeds from time to time. However, dandelions have developed a defense mechanism that as soon as the plant realizes it is about to die it immediately puffs out as a last grasp effort to get those seeds dispersed. So you may think you’ve gone on a killing spree with your chemical spray, but come back the next day (or even later that afternoon) and watch in horror as you now have a yard full of brown, withered dandelion leaves–all with puffballs. You can’t win with this approach. Gotta dig 'em up.
(And you have to quickly dispose of the ones you dig up. I once made the mistake of leaving my bag of dug up dandelions on the sidewalk, and the next day all the dead dandelions [or maybe I should say “mostly dead”] had puffed out and the wind was blowing the seeds everywhere.)
Get 2,4-D from the farm store. You have to sign for it but that’s what parks departments and turf growers use. The big thing is to spray it in the spring when the plants are small and just starting to really grow.
If I catch them well before the seeds can sprout, I just throw the weeds on the sidewalk or asphalt to die. If they’re in danger of turning into seed, I bury them under a rock.
Getting the root in my yard is really tough. Living the Rocky Mountains, well the ‘soil’ makes a great anchor for the little devils. It’s basically a mixture of clay and road base.
Get them before they sprout the flower and add them to your salad. Pop their evil little heads off and turn them into wine. Pull out the roots, clean and dry them and make ersatz coffee. Once they realize you are farming them, they’ll immediately die off. That’s what happens with pretty much every other plant I’ve tried to grow…
Yes, dandelions are hard to kill. This is a good thing, because it means we get lots of dandelions. I’ve never been able to understand the hate they get, when there’s nothing at all wrong with them (especially with bacon dressing).
well, if your lawn is 90% dandelion, it looks kinda gross.
I have seen this.
So this isn’t about Bill O’Reilly’s latest book?
The entire root needs to be removed. My lawn book shows, by way of example, a series of photos in which a person pulls up a dandelion, cuts the root into four parts, and puts them in dirt. Each piece sprouted an entire new dandelion.
So, since chemical control isn’t working for you, your next-best option is getting them out manually. The weeder linked to above is a great tool, though I’ve only used the shorter hand-tool version. A large flathead screwdriver is pretty effective, too; just jab into the ground near the thing and pry the whole plant up.
There’s one more option, but it’s slower, and you’ll have to be diligent: every day, maybe even more than once a day, walk your yard, and pull off flower heads from every dandelion you see. No flowerheads means no seeds, and the plant has to burn its energy trying to grow a new one. Eventually, the plant will just die, and if you’ve kept on top of it, there’ll be no seeds to make new dandelions.
The reason I went straight to the spray/weed killer is because the ‘soil’ in my yard makes it damn near impossible to pull them up. Even with special tools. I’ve pulled plenty in regular soil. This is a whole different kettle o fish.