8 Cool Facts About Everyone’s ‘Favorite’ Weed – Dandelions

Now that spring is here, chances are that you are already seeing those yellow annoying weeds coming up on your lawn called dandelions. But did you know that today is National Dandelion Day? To help celebrate, we’re going to give you some interesting facts about these plants, and then we’ll give you some helpful hints to help get rid of them.

8 Fun Facts About Dandelions

1. They’re the only flowers that represent all three celestial bodies:
   • Yellow – the sun
   • Puffy ball – the moon
   • Seeds – the stars
2. Dandelions open in the morning and close at night.
3. You can use all parts of the flower – leaves, flower, and root. They can be used for medicine, dye and food.
4. Until the 19^th century, the grass was pulled from lawns to give chamomile, chickweed, dandelions and malva more room.
5. The term dandelion was taken from French ‘dent de lion’. This means lion’s tooth, and it’s from the plant’s coarsely-toothed leaves.
6. The flowering season of dandelions is one of the longest in the plant family.
7. The seeds often get carried as far as five miles from where they originated.
8. They are a member of the daisy family, along with lettuce, artichokes, thistles, sunflowers, dahlias, marigolds, zinnias, asters, chamomile, sage, chicory, tarragon, ragweed, sagebrush, yarrow, chrysanthemums, goldenrod, and coneflowers.

Now that you probably know more about dandelions than you would like to know, we’re going to give you some tips on how to keep the dandelion population down.

Mow Regularly

Regularly mowing your lawn using a higher setting will help you with keeping the population down. Hopefully you’ll prevent a lot of buds from becoming mature enough to seed.

Smother Dandelions

You can get rid of them by denying them the sunlight they need. Use a few layers of newspaper strips and then cover those with mulch. The newspaper is biodegradable and won’t hurt the ground. If you still have weeds poking thourhg, simply add more newspaper and mulch.

Dig Them Up

You can’t kill them off by yanking their leaves off of by angrily blowing on the puffs. They have some really long, strong taproots. This means you have to dig them up and go deep. There’s even a tool made for this – the dandelion digger. This removes them from your soil. It’s hard to do, but it will work well if you can get rid of the whole plant as well as its root.

Make Sure Your Lawn’s Healthy

One of the best ways to prevent weeds is to take good care of the soil. Proper soil and lawn maintenance is going to help keep the soil fluffy and light. It also will help keep your grass thick and lush.

Well, there you have it. Some interesting facts about dandelions and some helpful tips for getting rid of them and preventing them. If you are interested, we offer a wide variety of lawn services, including a weeding program. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or request a quote.