Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
Why are Dandelions Weeds?

Gail Decker Cushman

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2 min read

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Jun 6, 2023

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For the past couple weeks, I have been pretending to be a gardener, planting flowers and pulling weeds. I have never claimed to be a gardener and always thought that a layer of plastic covered by rocks was the way to a pretty, carefree yard. Concrete works, too, and I have been known call the concrete guys when dandelions got the best of me. Easier, cheaper, and leaving me plenty of free time to do what I would rather do, put words on paper, and ask silly questions, like, “Why are dandelions weeds?” The cowboy is much better at a lot of things, including gardening, but even after several YouTube sessions, he couldn’t answer this question, although he offered me a dozen versions of how to properly scramble eggs, but that’s another story.

As a child, I had two dandelion experiences. 1. My mother insisted that we have a dandelion-free lawn, which took a lot of time and in hindsight, perhaps that was her goal, keeping me busy. I often wondered if she would go out in the dark of night and scatter dandelion seeds or fairy dust or whatever they grow from, so I would have something to do the next morning. I would have all of them extinguished by 9:00 at night but by breakfast, the next morning, whoosh, just like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, “I’m Back.” 2. My grandfather had different ideas, and he had me pick them from his yard, the more the merrier, he said. He turned them into wine and spent many an afternoon enjoying the fruits of my labor.

In the middle of this week’s weed-pulling binge, we planted a few flowers which are struggling to stay alive. We had three inches of rain in two days, “much needed” we say, and a few of the floundering flowers drowned, but not the dandelions. They live through anything. Draught, sun, rain, snow, being stepped on, eaten by deer, not to mention Cody’s poop. Even weed killers seem to nourish them sometimes.

I looked up dandelions on the Internet and it seems they have an overabundance of nutrients, helping everything from skin to livers, besides adding beauty as they punctuate lawns. They are bright, pretty, and smile at you just before you call it “curtains,” and yank the living life out of them. I’ve decided to give them a break, throw caution to the wind and let nature take its course. Of course, this is Montana, as the Cowboy mentions to me every time I note a problem, and we live on five acres of rocks and pine trees, so dandelions are just part of the colorful palette of this valley hillside. So, like the lilies of the field, those pretty yellow colors are here to stay as I think I will have another glass of wine (not dandelion wine, however).

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