I bought a house with a great yard–our first home and our first yard. I like to consider myself ecologically-minded; I like things natural, even unkempt is ok for me. I can’t deny that I love the look of a perfectly green lawn, but I also know the chemicals and cost required to get there, and it doesn’t seem worth it.

After my first winter in the home, it was exciting to see the yard start to green up everywhere. In the early spring, our yard was a mix of green, yellow, and purple. Dandelions and violets gave some refreshing color to the yard after the dull grey of winter.

I liked it. Yeah, maybe there were a lot of dandelions, but it was going to be ok. I would embrace it. Maybe I could be a part of a new era of lawn care. Something between my father (who could care less about the lawn and just cuts it as short as possible) and my father-in-law (who prefers the lush and perfect green).

Then, slowly the dandelions started to take over, and they showed their true colors. While dandelions look bright and yellow when you first interact with them, after you spend some time with them, you find that they are actually seedy, tan, dirty white, and all around an ugly breed. They started multiplying and taking over sections of the yard.

When it first started to happen, I just breathed deeper. This is all part of the natural life, right? I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But the dandelions were relentless. They continued to grow and spread and uglify my yard.

I did my best to embrace it. I read online that dandelions were actually quite healthy for you. I tried dandelion root tea, and I’ll admit that I actually liked it. I read that the leaves are great in a salad. I had my kids go and collect as many dandelion leaves as they could. I washed the leaves and sauteed them and added a lot of salt. And they were horrible. I couldn’t stomach it, and I will eat about anything. I didn’t see how anyone could like them.

My wife was the first one who broke. She said, “Look, if you want to keep the backyard like this, that’s fine. But we can’t let them go crazy in the front. Look at our neighbor’s yard. It’s so nice and green. We have to think about property values for us and our neighbors. If we have all these yellow flowers everywhere, what will people think?”

She thought it was time to spray some chemicals on the front, at least. But like I said, I’m not an extremist. I don’t hate the dandelions. I just want them to stay in there place and not take over things.

Now, when I drive by someone’s yard who has one of those nice dark green lawns, I start to yearn a little. That’s how a lawn is supposed to look, I’ll say to myself. Perfect green. Not nasty yellow.

I found myself constantly researching online, trying to find non-chemical ways to get those damn yellow plants out of my lawn. Of course, I don’t mean totally. Just reasonable. Like here and there. And not in the really nice parts of the lawn.

You can pour boiling water on them and that kills them (I tried that and unshockingly it worked, along with giving me a burn on my hand!). You can spray vinegar on them and it is supposed to trick the plant into ingesting the acid. That only kind of worked, but only in the right circumstances.

In the end, what can you say? Dandelions are an invasive species; they are a weed. They don’t belong here. I read that some early settlers actually brought them over for medicinal purposes. But I’ve grown to hate them. They don’t look good when they spread so much and I wish they’d just go back to where they came from.

I know that’s not possible, and may sound harsh, but let’s be honest. Yards should be green. You know where dandelions seem to grow fine? In the city. In cracks in the pavement. They seem to like it there and I have no problem with them being there. Let them take over all those old parking lots and abandoned buildings for all I care. Whenever we want to build something there later, we’ll just bulldoze the whole place and clear out the dandelions and build a microbrewery or something.

I’ve come to the point where I don’t like my kids touching the dandelions. They get right up next to them and then spread all their seed everywhere. The kids think they are fun and beautiful, but they just haven’t lived long enough to know the truth.

Like I said, I’m an ecologically-minded person. I just have my limits. I’ve got to protect my yard, and this has gone far enough.

Photo by Keegan Houser on Unsplash