To my dandelions, a new way.
Dandelions were originally brought to the United States by European settlers who highly valued them as food and medicine. Today we collectively spend millions on dandelion health products, while spending billions to wage war on them in our lawns.
The war begins:
I was protective of the strawberry patch, the one thing in my new backyard that I immediately recognized. I went under contract for the house the last day of January and closed the first week of March.
Soon the melting snow revealed a lawn strewn with stones, a rusting bathtub and remnants of childhoods past — most of a metal tractor, half-buried action figures, a little toy car. I wrote a letter to the woman who had sold me the house. I’d hoped to meet her at the closing, to ask her questions and personally thank her for the smooth transaction, but whether because of COVID or personal preferences, our paths never crossed.
My letter thanking her and eagerly inquiring about the backyard went unanswered.’ He was doing a southwest theme back there at one point,’ a neighbor told me, referring to the seller’s late husband. The spiky cacti found their way to my flesh through gloved hands, as I dug my fingers into the fresh spring soil.
I had moved nearly every year since college and mostly lived in townhouses and apartment buildings. The inside of our house might be chaos, a kitchen half-constructed, contractors in and out, a couch on backorder, and a small master bedroom affixed with two dressers — -a couple moving in together for the first time, unsure how to combine lives full of duplicates and gaps. The backyard, messy as it was, was uninteresting to my partner, and thus my personal reprieve.
I remember the day my battle with the dandelions began. It was the first Saturday in May and a college friend was passing through. Jess was a former housemate, someone I’d once lived in parallel to, going about the daily motions of life . Though nearly a decade had passed, the comfort remained intact. I walked purposefully across the lawn, showing Jess the strawberry patch, well-established, and sprawling out of the knee-height plastic fence, growing quickly now as the days warmed.
Overwhelmed by the idea of making new beds, of the mess inside and out, of setting up a water system and testing my soil Ph. I instead turned my eyes to an easy culprit.
I plopped down on the grass, spade in hand and began to uproot the dandelions that circled the strawberries. Jess watched, continuing to talk, unperturbed as I worked.
I left the dandelions uprooted in the sun and moved to the area in front of the patio, where I relentlessly continued excavation.
I knew dandelions were edible, used in salads and teas, yet in these moments, all I could think was inaction on my part would threaten the precious strawberries and my future veggies, mostly sitting in starters in my home office.
This was my first time owning a home. First time planting a garden since childhood. Though I had always admired dandelions, loving their bright merry presence among otherwise solid green lawns, I felt an impatience with them as they dared to decorate the space I had only just acquired.
As the weeks went on, my dandelion population, undeterred by my early warnings, multiplied. Working remotely at home, I’d take breaks from my desk and fill up garbage bags — flower, leaves, roots and all. On one particularly ambitious day, I brought out the shop vac and laboriously dragged it around the yard, diligently sucking up each fuzzy dandelion head. To my consternation, the next day revealed a fresh batch of fuzz. Though there were no signs I was winning the battle, my war waged on, until one day I woke-up and realized most of the dandelions, as well as the grass had perished in the arid heat. They returned in the early fall, as the heat subsided, though not with the same ferocity as the spring, and I, now busy with harvest, mostly ignored them, a momentary peace.
A weed is only a weed in the eye of the beholder
It’s a year later, mid-March. The snow from the backyard is already gone, and I can see the prolific dandelion leaves staking their claim in our soil. They are consistent and persistent, unafraid to announce their presence, even weeks away from their first blooms.
It is me who has changed. I’m in my second month of herb school now and look at this yellow Asteraceae family with a deep respect. The dandelion is a source of food and medicine. It’s a bitter that stimulates bile production, supporting our digestion. It’s a source of calcium, potassium, protein, and vitamins A and C. It supports the kidney and the liver. Though seen as a pest by many today, dandelion was so valued by the European settlers that they carried the seeds with them across the Atlantic.
I’m eager to fry up the tops, as suggested by my botany teacher, to make a strong coffee-like tea with the roots, and to sprinkle the leaves through my early summer salads. This and so much more, is possible with dandelions.
Like any relationship, there will be highs and lows, days of discovery and growth, and those where boundaries feel crossed, and I temporarily retreat, not ready to listen to what its bright blooms have to say.
Dandelions are known for seeing opportunity where other plants would not dare attempt to lay roots. They poke up through the smallest sidewalk cracks, polluted roadsides and yes — lawns across the country, where natural ecosystems have long been vanquished for the neat and tidy green grass of suburban dreams.
In a healthy, diverse ecosystem dandelions will not take over; it only in our damaged lawns where they relentlessly persist. If you spray your lawn with any type of chemical, you cannot also benefit from the dandelion, as its roots will soak in whatever you spray, outweighing its many health benefits. Thus, to use the dandelion medicinally requires an acceptance of it.
Instead of seeing dandelion as the problem, what if we use it as a bellwether, providing clues as to how we can do better. An overwhelm of dandelions? An opportunity for food and medicine and also a sign of imbalance in our ecosystem. Inspired by teachers and books, I’m planting red clover, yarrow, violets, beans and oats throughout the grass this year.
I don’t know where the relationship with dandelion will go, after all, it’s not only up to me, but a dance with the plant and the many other inhabitants of this land I call home. All I can promise is I will be open-minded, I will honor the many gifts it offers and work with it to find where it fits within my evolving backyard landscape.
Reflection:
What’s your dandelion story? What’s your favorite recipe? Where in your life can you be more like the tenacious, ever-bright dandelion?
Related permaculture principle:
“Turn problems into solutions.”
