Dealing with Dandelions

Dealing with Dandelions

Having a lawn full of dandelions is one of the biggest pains of having a garden. This particularly bothersome lawn weed can be an eyesore to your perfect lawn if they decide to sprout unexpectedly. Worse still, they can grow all year round, but no matter the season, this article will show you how to get rid of dandelions that infest your grass.

Dandelions are a particularly bothersome lawn weed. Though the broad green leaves may not be too obvious the bright yellow florets and tall, swaying clocks are pretty hard to miss.  Worse still they may flower all year round. So, in winter your garden may not have much time without dandelions.

Dandelions are not all bad

Few people are aware of the benefits which dandelions can bring to gardens. Their taproot can bring nutrients in the soil closer to the surface. This will also increase the amount of nitrogen available for surrounding plants. However, this is of little comfort to most of us .

Dealing with dandelions – How to remove dandelions from your lawn

So how can they be removed? The deep taproot which is responsible for bringing nutrients up to the soil’s surface can be as many as three feet deep. So pulling at the plant on the surface will do little to eradicate them . New dandelions will just grow back from the root left behind.

A chemical weed killer is by far the best way to deal with dandelions. Better still, ‘weed and feed’ treatments will deal with the dandelion problem whilst giving a lawn a post-winter boost. There are special tools which can be used to uproot them, but this will inevitably be more laborious and less effective than a chemical treatment.

Other non-chemical treatments include covering the weeds with black plastic or cardboard (as with all plants, dandelions require sunlight to photosynthesise and survive) . If your garden is suitable, you could even consider having chickens or rabbits both of which are very fond of dandelions.

Dealing with dandelions – preventing a dandelion invasion

To stop an infestation of dandelions from returning mow your lawn regularly, and take care not to mow it too short.

Regular mowing will prevent the dandelions being able to produce the clocks from which their seeds are spread. Not mowing too short will ensure that there are no bare patches of ground on which these seeds can establish themselves.