Okay, so
why do we hate dandelions so much? (I
say we because I think there are at least a few others that share my
hostility.) Mars suggested that perhaps
if I understood the “Taraxacum officinal’s” role in the ecology of our planet I
might find a reason to feel less bitter towards these malevolent yellow
monsters that keep desecrating my lawn.
Maybe, for example, they are like bees.
Bees pollinate plants – everybody loves bees, except when we are under
attack by a swarm of them.
Or, more
similarly, perhaps clover.
Google-search
for the purpose of clover and you will be overrun with adulatory articles about
this low-growing herbaceous plant. It sucks
nitrogen from the atmosphere and “fixes’ it on its roots from where it is
transferred to the soil; improves soil tilth and creates root channels;
provides better forage quality and increased yield (if you like tilth you’ve
gotta love forage); and (everybody’s favorite) furnishes pollen and nectar for
honeybees and tends to increase the population of beneficial predatory insects.
Plus clover
does all these things modestly without calling hardly any attention to itself.
So what
about dandelions? Since they announce
their presence so loudly you would think they must have much, much more to
contribute.
Here is
what I found in online in the google.com “backyard-nature” group:
“The plant can be used to make wine, as a diuretic, and a
source of vitamins and minerals. The root can be ground to make dandelion
coffee. The head can be battered and fried, and the leaves can be blanched and eaten fresh or
cooked. Apparently they're not just useless weeds!”
To which I
say, “Meh”.
But (drum
roll please) “dandelion nectar and pollen is important to bees, and the nectar
is food for the Pearl-bordered Fritillary.”
The what?? (It’s a tiny
butterfly, orange with black spots.)
Apparently
“honey bees flock to dandelions both in the early spring and in times of dearth
when little else is in bloom.” But, like
we Irish and our potatoes, bees cannot live on dandelions alone. Dandelions do not have some of the amino
acids that are needed to produce protein – and all you exercisers know the
importance of your post workout protein shakes.
And, even worse, there is what I would call the “Viagra effect”.
“Researchers
have found that honey bees fed dandelion pollen alone have low success at
raising brood. In fact, some researchers found that that honey bees fail to raise
any brood when fed dandelion pollen alone.”
Maybe apian
colony collapse disorder (CCD) is really just bee ED.
So, having
tasted both dandelion leaves and dandelion wine somewhere back in my past when
I most likely didn’t have any choice, and having too much respect for honey
bees to give them false hope, or worse – I am now opting to permanently exclude
these flamboyant intruders from my property.
Dandelions
didn’t bother me that much back when I was working and had less time to deal
with such things. Actually before she
went back into the workforce Marsha quietly dispensed of these noxious weeds
with a device called a “Killer Cane” – also remembered on the “straight dope”
website as “a green tube with a cap at one end and a push pump at the other.
You filled it with weed killer and went around the yard pushing the pump down
on the crowns of weeds. Great product, you could do the yard in a few minutes,
but since it probably used Paraquat or Agent Orange you can't find it anymore.”
Then we
both began working all week and the dandelions fell off of our radar.
In
retirement however I now have time for Daily Dandelion Patrol with my trusty
fork-tongued weed tool – thirty minutes a day of fresh air, sunshine, and a
modicum of exercise. And my yard is
yellow-free for at least twelve hours.
