Dandelions are one of the most common weeds in the world, and they grow on every continent except for Antarctica. These resilient, bright yellow flowers have clever ways of taking root in our lawns and lives, making them the number one most difficult and despised weed in the US.
Dandelions are considered weeds because they grow best in areas where we don’t want them to grow. Dandelions can spread rapidly and are difficult to eradicate, which was once a benefit since humans used to cultivate these flowers as a staple crop. However, they are now a nuisance in our gardens.
If you’re wondering how such a small and striking flower gained its reputation as a weed, you’ve come to the right place. I’ll tell you why and how the dandelion, once revered as a beautiful cure-all and staple crop, became a target for herbicides and weeding.
1. Dandelions Grow Best in Lawns and Landscaped Areas
Weeds, by definition, are plants that grow in places you don’t want them to. Dandelions have a knack for that, cropping up in perfectly manicured lawns, garden spaces, and raised beds with no invitation. Since dandelions often grow in areas we have meticulously landscaped, cleared, or planted over, many people dread these flowers.
Dandelions thrive and reproduce in areas with depleted topsoil since they have evolved to fill spaces that we have overplanted. Their seeds germinate well in compacted soils low in calcium, making mature grass lawns and unrotated garden beds the ideal environments for these flowers.
Still, it’s beneficial to note that because dandelions usually only grow in challenging terrain, a crop of dandelions might indicate that your lawn or garden needs more nutrients and aeration.
However, once you have one dandelion, preventing an “outbreak” of these flowers can be challenging since they are very effective at spreading their tiny, fluffy seeds far and wide. In addition, they grow long, deep taproots that sprout more flowers anytime you remove the heads, making weeding a tricky task.
Because many people struggle to eliminate dandelions from their garden and lawn spaces, they are a target plant for weed control. Many people attempt to use herbicides and manual removal to stop them from spreading.
2. Dandelions Have Taproots That Are Challenging To Kill
Dandelions use singular large roots called taproots to push deep down into the soil.
This taproot is a long carrot-like structure that can reach up to 3 feet (0.9 m) beneath the earth’s surface. This root is the key to the dandelion’s resilience, and it offers several benefits, including:
- Access to more nutrients and moisture. A dandelion’s taproot can pull water and nutrients from the deepest soil layers that no other plants have been able to reach. This feature enables dandelions to find food and water in the most rugged terrain.
- Ability to grow in depleted soils. A dandelion’s long taproot also enables dandelions to thrive in places where the topmost layers of dirt have little nutrients.
- Root-based reproduction. A dandelion’s taproot can also re-sprout new flowers in a process called vegetative reproduction. Even if you cut all the leaves and flowers away from this root, it will be able to create at least one fresh flower to replace the one you removed.
- Ability to survive cold weather. Taproots can reach the layers of soil that do not frost during the winter, and since they can produce new flowers independently, dandelions will return every spring as long as the root is under the ground.
The dandelion’s tough taproot is a significant benefit if you plan to eat and harvest the leaves and flowers since the plant will regenerate.
However, if the dandelion is an unwanted pest in your yard or garden, you may have to dig deep to displace the taproot and eliminate the flowers.
3. Dandelions Spread Their Seeds Very Effectively
Maybe you’ve heard that if you make a wish before blowing on a dandelion, your wish will come true. Well, I’ll say this — even if the wish doesn’t come to fruition, those seeds surely will!
One single dandelion can produce over 200 seeds, which are more correctly called achenes.
These achenes each have pappus or feathery, cotton-like hair on top of them. Dandelion pappi have branched, fluffy tops that work like a bird’s feathers to ensure that breezes can carry them to their next rooting place.
Pappi are slightly sticky, allowing animals, birds, and rain to disperse the seeds far and wide.
So, the seed structure on a dandelion ensures that the seeds will leave the mother plant, no matter what happens. With 200 per flower, that’s a lot of new baby dandelions, and if they take root in your yard, good luck trying to stop the next 200 flowers from spreading 200 seeds each.
This rapid seed dispersal is one feature that makes dandelions challenging to control and eradicate. If you or your neighbor have just one dandelion, it won’t be long before more seeds float in and take root in your landscape.
4. Dandelions Can Break Through Structures
If you’ve ever noticed a dandelion popping up through a hole or crack in a sidewalk or street, you might have thought the crack was there before the flower came. However, it’s more likely that that little flower smashed through the asphalt to make itself a new home.
As I mentioned, dandelion roots can break through compacted soil. However, these delicate-looking little flowers can also break through other things, such as weak concrete or asphalt. When dandelions pop up in these places, you can’t easily dig out the taproot, making it incredibly challenging to eradicate them.
However, if you leave the dandelion to grow there, it will continue to damage the structure as its root expands and spreads new growth.
This resilience is precisely why the tile of “weed” has stuck for the dandelion. Once you decide that you don’t want these bright yellow flowers growing in your landscape, you realize that eliminating them will be an uphill challenge.
5. People Do Not Use Dandelions the Way They Used To
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, dandelions were prized flowers and herbs that had their place in the kitchen.
The ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Chinese used dandelions as medicine and an ingredient in many dishes. Some traditional ways to consume the plant include using the foliage in salads, as wine, in stews and soups, and teas.
It is a very healthy plant to consume, as it contains many vitamins and minerals such as vitamins A, C, K, and E and minerals like potassium, iron, calcium, and magnesium. Other studies have proved a correlation between consuming dandelions and improved digestive, liver, and immune health. However, the dandelion is very bitter, which was part of its downfall.
Due to these health benefits, the early American colonists brought dandelions over from Europe as a staple crop.
However, the lawn changed all of that. Lawns, traditionally manicured fields where the 16th-century European aristocracy played garden games and held parties, were cultural imports that came with the American colonists. They only became more popular as the development of the suburbs and industrialization grew between the late 1800s and 1960s.
During this shift, the humble dandelion became a demonized pest since it often invaded the solid sheets of grass that made up people’s pristine suburban lawns. The dandelion saw a big comeback during the food scarcity of the Great Depression, but soon after, it lost its prestige as a reliable source of nutrition.
In addition, other, better-tasting foods and crops gradually replaced the dandelion in culinary applications. Plants such as arugula and chicory were much less bitter than dandelions, and they eventually displaced the dandelion in seed catalogs and on general store shelves.
Eventually, all that was left for the dandelions were to spread, as they do so well, into gardens, crop fields, and lawns, where they have become a pest today.
However, you’ll still find some people, particularly Southern Appalachians and foraging enthusiasts, picking this plant and turning it into wine or blanching it as a salad. Likewise, you may also find dandelion roots, which many people use as a substitute for coffee, on the shelves of health food stores.
If you find yourself in a situation where dandelions overrun your yard, remember how far this humble little weed has come and how long it has been growing in our gardens and lawns. From prized medicinal plants to weeds, dandelions have followed us wherever we have gone, regardless of what we choose to call them.
