my lawn has been taken over!

It's hard to say when it is not flowering. I encourage hedge cranesbill as I like it a lot and it's already in flower, so I doubt if it is cranesbill.

It does not look like creeping buttercup as this already is in creeping habit.

If your plant forms distinct clumps which resist easy pulling out I think it might be a buttercuppy thing that I dislike as it takes over my garden both 'lawn' and at the edges of bushes. I don't know the name of it.The tiny flowers when they come are on long rather stiff stems and are like small yellow stars.

Baggs, even my neighbour who has a 'wild' garden, carefully maintained, mentioned the dandelions and thought perhaps they could become a nuisance.
She said it so nicely we feel we must do something about them.

My lawn is sprinkled with violets Luckygirl, back and front. I've no idea where they came from and I did want to take the turf from one area of lawn to a patch which is rewilding.
But perhaps I'll just leave them and mow around them.

They're very pretty.
Now, off to do something about the dandelion infestation.

Outside the front of my bungalow there is a large gravel area - this year it is full of violets that have seeded there - it looks lovely.

As to the back garden - I refer to my "lawn" as green vegetation, as even calling it grass is an exaggeration!

Oo no Espee no! Not stone chips.

I get what youre saying about hard work and it may be a better option to get a mower I can handle.

My "advisor" , a botanist who has a garden with hardly any lawn just beautiful plants and trees, thinks leaving it to nature would be a good experiment and has offered to scythe it in the Autumn.

I'd love to be invaded by violets!

@Grammaretto I turned a wide strip in front of my house into a quasi wildflower meadows a number of years ago. It was quite a project. I used seed and plugs. Neighbours would donate things like buttercups they wanted rid of and any seed packet remains. Anything that looked the part went in. I wasn't precious about it being genuine wild flowers believing that as long as the bees were happy it was fine with me.
It got better and better until last year when some rampant ugly grass took over. I now don't feel I have the energy to fight the grass as it is so difficult to dig out and I'm not up to it.
Am now contemplating covering it all in black plastic for a few years then having it dug over and planted with groundcover, or perhaps decorative stone chips. So sad. It was lovely.

It looks like a geranium (cranesbill) to me, clearly self seeded so you must know the mother plant. I would take a guess at endressi which is a peachy pink, flowers from April/May until late autumn.
Personally I always feel it is better to go with nature. That part of your garden doesn't want to be lawn so don't force the issue.
As the geranium likes it there you can encourage it by removing the dandelions, lamium, and anything else growing amongst it then splitting the geraniums and planting evenly all over. It will root quickly if you water it and by summer you will have a sea of pink flowers which is excellent at suppressing weeds.
Wildflower meadow is another option but Labour intensive to be kept pretty. For large parts of the year is will simply look abandoned and neglected.

Nice one Baggs! We are invaded by violets.

Deffo creeping buttercup. I made a decision to leave my lawn to nature this year, create a natural meadow. However I'm now getting nervous . I'm afraid the nettles will be 6ft high.
Has anyone tried?

This is part of one of my wildflower areas. The yellow flowers are Cat's-ear which flower later than dandelions. Check out the clover too. There are also rushes and sedges in there and various mosses.

As well, of course, as some Northern Marsh Orchids, one of which is pictured.

Of course native species are quite specific to different areas and soils. Plants that thrive on, for example chalk uplands, who not do well in wetter, darker soils.

native wild flower mix

Well this says native so unless the BHS are lying why not try these.

And the fact that non-native seeds are included means that these flower mixes are not as useful to native insects as, one hopes, people who sow them expect.

Plantlife.org and BSBI (the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland) have lots of info.

Creeping buttercups and dandelions are classic flowers of wildflower meadows, callis.

The exotic-looking pictures of so-called wildflower meadows we see associated with packets of mixed seed are usually not of native plants that would normally have been found in ancient UK meadows. Most people don't realise this, unfortunately.

I'm trying to achieve a wild meadow, well more of a strip, Baggs but some plants just take over, eg creeping buttercup, dandelions.
Convolvulus has lovely flowers but I don't want it strangling everything else.

It looks like creeping buttercup to me, which is very invasive.

Looks like buttercups to me.

You might even find you have more than one kind: meadow and creeping and, possibly, even bulbous.

Why wage war on them? They're gorgeous if you just let them flower.

I wage constant war on buttercups in my lawn, but...you do have to admire the rotters don’t you!

You also have dandelions (which insects love) and at least one lesser celandine in there and, no doubt, various mosses — a natural wild meadow. People actually make efforts to achieve such! Leave it all to flower. It'll look lovely, especially to wildlife.

Looks like buttercups to me. Wait until they flower, then you'll know.

My lawn and flower borders gets completely swamped with 'babies tears' - not sure what the real name is.
I pull it out regularly but can't seem to eradicate it completely.

Are they daisies?