Dandelion, Lion's Tooth, Bitterwort, Chicoria, Fortune-Teller, Wild Endive, Puffball

On Apr 30, 2015, Chillybean from (Zone 5a) wrote:

I do not like this plant because it doesn't belong to North America. Give me a yardful of Wild Violets, instead. :)

There is so much conflicting info about the dandelion: a sign of compacted, poor soil, it can grow in the best of conditions, on and on. So I give up and try to live with them. I will take these over Creeping Charlie (the one plant we put a herbicide on) any day.

Yet because of its usefulness for food, I cannot give this a negative. It's harvest time here! Cookies and Cakes are favorites. A couple cups or more of petals go into granola. I am going to experiment with syrup, soup and even tea this year. I do not like the leaves in salad, even if I can find them before they bloom, but the flowers themselves are fine to add to foods for the ... read moreadded health benefits without much added flavor.

On Jun 22, 2008, kryistina from Springfield, MO wrote:

A fabulous wild food, the Dandelion plant is edible in it's entirety. The young spring leaves are a great salad green, and the older leaves are great cooked or as a pot herb. The flowers are great for fritters, in any baked good, and made into wine, the roots are great in stews or roasted and ground into a coffee substitute. High in vitamins, and widely available, they are a great and tasty way to supplement a diet with a little colorful fun.

Easy to grow with little-to-no care or attention, gets bigger and more prolific if fertilized with an organic fish emulsion solution and not mown down regularly.

We have problems keeping these lovely "weeds" in our yard because we spend so much time eating them, and we usually have to not only reseed often, but also go hu... read morenting elsewhere for them.

Dandelions are also a great marker for a toxin-free area, as they are sensitive to pesticides and herbicides. A Dandelion free yard is surely one on which poisons have been sprayed.

On Jan 25, 2008, tropicsofohio from Hilliard, OH (Zone 6b) wrote:

fields of these grow here, and they look so beautiful, just not when they are in your yard. it is an all out battle to Irradicate them from my yard. still i rate it neutral, just because of all of its uses, and some even bloom in winter. (a nice surprise after no other blooms for months)

On Aug 4, 2007, Sparisi1122 from Gloucester, MA wrote:

They are a weed around here, but that isn't really a bad thing for me. My guinea pig loves flowers, stems, and leaves.

On Aug 12, 2006, Joan from Belfield, ND (Zone 4a) wrote:

A nasty weed here. I've bent/worn out several dandelion diggers trying to eradicate them from my yard. One of those fluffy seed heads sends numerous seeds floating in the wind to sprout in new areas.

On Dec 16, 2004, BotanyDave from Norman, OK (Zone 7a) wrote:

I love Dandelions! Not only do they look nice and smell good, they're also pretty tasty!
Ah! To be in Russia, where dandelions are prized and left to grow where they will- or Hokkaido, Japan, where one of the only plants more abundant in the city garden-things is the horsetail! What of Australia, where they are cultivated as a major cash crop?
Botanically speaking, communities of dandelions may be genetically identical, since each plant can, um, clone itself. And depending what you belive in the way of categories, each population of dandelion may be considered its own sub-species or species. Most people consider this to be going too far, though...
I don't care, I will continue to try to plant dandelions, and my family will continue to pull them up when I'm not loo... read moreking.

On Jul 3, 2003, Terry from Murfreesboro, TN (Zone 7a) wrote:

The common English name "Dandelion" is a derivation of the French Dent-de-Lion, ("tooth of the lion"), a reference to the deeply serrated edge of the leaves.

In modern times, this perennial is the poster child for unwelcome plants (aka "weeds") in most gardens. A persistent broad-leaf plant that is especially difficult to eradicate because of its long taproot. Some tout the edible and medicinal qualities of the dandelion as redeeming features, but most of us with a turf lawn see it as a formidable foe.

Children love to blow on the fluffy ripe seedpods and watch the seeds drift away on the slightest breeze until landing, probably on a well-manicured expanse of turf.