Dandy Dandelions

Ahhhh…. dandelions – those delightful, yellow harbingers of spring.  I know they’re weeds, I know that their root structure rivals that of a willow tree, but damn they’re pretty!  A hillside of them, from a distance, makes me happy.  I love taking up one of the flowers when it’s gone to seed and blowing it as I’m walking on a country road.  Sends me tripping back to my youth.  It’s only when you see a dandelion up close, when  you’re trying to stop their infestation into your own lawn, that you see that they’re evil.

Like say, when you look upon your own backyard and count them.  By the dozens.  And then you calculate the amount of time that you’ll spend, bent over, attempting to yank them from your lawn.  And, because you have lots of actual grass in the lawn already, battling said dandelions, the weeds then decide to fight back, grow bigger roots, branch out.  You can’t get a clean yank when there’s a root the size of Ron Jeremy in your lawn.  Even with a special weed thingie, to loosen up the soil.  ‘Cause you can’t just go in once, you have to go down around the entire plant, multiple times, but nobody ever does that.  You try to save time, so you pray that that single stab with the upward twist will be enough, but instead you hear the crunch of the root as you pull the evil greenery from the ground,  leaving the end of that stinkin’ root below the grass, dormant for a time before it bursts forth, yet again, ready to spread it’s fluffy payload all over the lawn in probably 8 days’ time.

I’ve heard tell of a water-powered weeder from Lee Valley Tools that tunnels around weeds with a shot of high-pressure water – thereby ensuring easy weed removal.  Takes twice or three times as long but removes them.  One. Weed. At. A. Time.   If I start today, patiently using the regular weeding tool that doesn’t cost $49.95, by September I might have a clean lawn.