How To Deal With Dandelions In Your Yard The Natural Way [Week 17]

Posted On April 30, 2021

Amanda Drews, 7 minute read

The most natural way to deal with dandelions in your yard is to just let them be.

Oh, that’s not what you wanted to hear?

Let’s look at some different sides of the story. Because part of this whole journey towards eco-friendly living is looking at the practicality and the effects of the choices we are making.

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Can we first just agree that the traditional idea of having a perfectly manicured lawn is on it’s way out?

My parents and my in-laws are probably going to be a little upset by this one. Hi guys! I love you all but sorry, my generation does not feel compelled to maintain a meticulously pampered, chemical laden spread of Kentucky blue grass as the site for our kids (your grandkids!) to roll around and play in.

We are not bad neighbors for letting a few dandelions grow in our yard in the spring. Although that is obviously subjective based on the glances I’ve gotten from a neighbor kiddie corner from us that has been loving dubbed as Sir Mows-a-lot.

I don’t know if it’s that we care less about how we look to other people, not needing to keep up with the Jones’ on curb appeal and such. Or if it’s the loads of evidence coming out that having ecologically barren lawns is having an effect on wildlife.

Now if I were selling my house would I spruce up my lawn a bit? You betcha. But I also have seen lawns that look spectacular that are maintained but not frequently mowed. And those can create a nice island of habitat amongst a sea of chemically fertilized, and quite frankly boring, sheets of grass.

It’s also becoming increasingly popular to use alternative plants as ground cover and many of them require less mowing and maintenance such as clover, thyme, fescue and Irish moss.

But let’s get back to dandelions.

Dandelions have an important ecological role.

Those little yellow flowers do serve a purpose and can be a good indicator of what’s going on with the soil in your yard.

The Permaculture Orchard and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners talk about some of the issues dandelions may indicate or help solve in your yard.

• Compacted soil- dandelion taproot helps loosen up soil that has been compacted.
• Calcium- the large taproot is going deep down and pulling up calcium from the soil. Eventually when you mow or the flowers, leaves and stems die, that calcium will get deposited onto the top of your grass creating a healthier lawn.
• Acidic soil- dandelions will help neutralize the pH levels in an acidic soil (although I found no journals on why that might happen).

The overall theme of what I’m finding is: leave the dandelions alone to do their job and they will thin themselves out once your soil is restored.

They act as some of the Spring’s first foods for critters like bees. Who have a crazy important role in our world for pollination.

Dandelions come relatively early in the spring compared to most other plants. Bees and other insects will use their pollen as a food source.

However, dandelions are not the only food available to bees in the spring and actually aren’t the most nutritious source of food for them according to Oxford Academic. They found the pollen in dandelions was low in valine, isoleucine , leucine and arginine as far as what is required for honey bee nutrition. This could lead to deficiencies in amino acids necessary for colony brood-rearing if dandelion pollen was all they collected. It’s kind of like if we ate only junk food. You could get by on just chips for a while but you would be seriously lacking some nutrition and would eventually start to see a decline in your health.

A study published in the Journal of Pollination Ecology suggests there is the potential for dandelions to even inhibit seed production of other flowers when pollinators visit multiple plants.

Here are some other plants that bloom early in the Midwest that can be beneficial for insects according to Monarchguard.com

Are dandelions ugly or beautiful?

That’s going to be up to you to decide. Some people see dandelions as a beautiful color pop welcoming spring in after a long winter. Others see them as a nasty, ugly weed. Some towns even have very specific laws against letting your yard look natural on your property. Ask any child what they think and I bet you, without the influence of their parents opinions, they will have a positive or even magical view of dandelions. So where did us adults start hating them so much? Admit it. Wish or not, even now you occasionally pick up a really good dandelion puff and blow on it.

So what do we do with all this information?

OK, so dandelions are good for the soil.

And good for bees. But not great for bees.

And they are pretty. Or ugly. It depends on who you ask and how they view them.

So where does this leave us on what to do, or not do, with the dandelions in our yards?

Here are the conclusions I’ve come to for my own yard.

Although weed killer like Roundup does have its uses, we decided as a family early on that chemicals will be used very sparingly in our yard. In the grassy parts of our lawn, we’ll let dandelions grow for a little longer in the spring until it’s time to cut the grass.

I will dig and pull dandelions out where I can, but honestly, in the spots of our rock work garden that are hard to dig out, I flame them. It’s probably not the most environmentally friendly way of getting rid of them and they will for sure grow right back. But it only takes a couple minutes once a month in the summer.

I won’t tell my kids not to pull dandelions and I wouldn’t feel bad harvesting them for eating.

I’ll be looking at that list and seeing which plants I could add to my yard in order to offer something a little more nutritious for the creatures looking for pollen in the spring.

So how do you get rid of the ones you actually do want gone without using nasty chemicals in your yard?

Sometimes even the biggest fans of keeping things natural still don’t want dandelions popping up in certain places. I don’t want them all up in my rocks amongst the other flowers I’ve painstakingly planted.

Plant Natural Research Center gives some tips on how to get rid of the dandelions you don’t want in your yard.

• When you see them, whether it’s early spring or late summer, take care of them right away.
• Just pulling the tops off or flaming them isn’t enough. To really prevent them from growing back you’ll need to get the entire taproot out. If you can SAFELY dig in that area, use a spade or shovel to dig out the whole thing along with the sod and dirt around it. There are also a variety of dandelion remover tools below. I’ve never used these but would be curious to learn how they work. They may also be a better option for people that have a hard time kneeling down to dig out weeds.
• Pour regular white vinegar down the hole where the dandelion was but don’t get it on the surrounding grass.
• Fill in the empty spot with your compost!

1.Decide as a family about how you feel about dandelions and chemical use in your yard.

2. Check out the list of early blooming plants and see if there are any you could add to your yard.

3. Head to Week 18 to see if you have an energy efficient home.