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Gardening

Lawn full of dandelions

(60 Posts)
Luckygirl3 Mon 09-Sept-24 12:31:29

How do people get rid of them? My "lawn" is now a dandelion patch really!

I am not keen on using harsh chemicals as I am surrounded by farmland, and I have a biodigester and do not want anything to interfere with that. I am not able to dig them all out - I am not fit enough and getting help with these things is very hard round here. Also having a lawn full of the resulting holes is hard to walk on!

Any ideas??? Anyone ever used one of those things that burn weeds?

Any ideas?

Ilovedogs22 Thu 17-Oct-24 19:51:03

Its wonderful to hear that many of you Grans are allowing dandelions & daisies ect to florish & enrich your lawns with the wonderful, fantastic insects & wildlife that they attract.
I think my lawn/grass really looks like a beautiful, natural tapestry & it's wonderful to watch all the benificial life it supports too. DH totally disagrees! grin 🌞🌍🎄🍎

Gwyllt Thu 17-Oct-24 18:42:00

ALLSORTS. Having just read your post I looked up woodrush and realised I’ve got patches of it Unlike you it’s well behaved and keeps itself to patches between the grass ( not lawn ) and the ivy under the tres where it is quite shady It’s let to grow and strimmed occasionally

MissAdventure Thu 17-Oct-24 18:01:06

Reported.

adamjohn Thu 17-Oct-24 17:56:22

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adamjohn Thu 17-Oct-24 17:53:25

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MissAdventure Fri 11-Oct-24 20:58:45

They are fast runners this year. Urghhhh! 😱

Fidelity2 Fri 11-Oct-24 20:48:58

Where are the spiders in my home coming from? I seem to find 2 or 3 every day! There is a saying ....If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive. I have just flushed one down the loo as it is raining outside. They just give me the creeps! I don't have any cobwebs!

ziyaa Thu 03-Oct-24 15:17:23

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Allsorts Tue 01-Oct-24 07:35:21

I could deal with dandelions, they do at least look pretty and feed the bees and insects,, thank goodness you do not have woodrush, nothing kills it, its ugly, invasive and I wage battle continuously , it serves no purpose but to destroy the lawn.

ziyaa Mon 30-Sept-24 12:47:18

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Merseymog Sat 28-Sept-24 18:43:11

Always pick the flowers to prevent any seeds spreading. Use a Daisy-Grubber and ease out the plant with as much of the root as you can. Check your lawn every few days and do this task. Slowly overtime most of dandelions will disappear. Because of wind blown seeds vigilence and persistence is the only answer.

MayBee70 Sat 14-Sept-24 19:40:31

My next door neighbour started pulling up the Californian poppies growing in the gravel on my driveway. When Iasked him to stop doing it and said ‘ they’re poppies’ he said ‘they’re poppy weeds’. They didn’t seem to be spreading into his garden, though ( there’s a small fence dividing us). They did look very pretty imo!

Allira Sat 14-Sept-24 16:36:59

MayBee70

I’ve been pouring any left over boiling water on the weeds, too, with little effect. Going to use the scarifier on my lawn next spring in the hope that I can clear out the weeds. At least I haven’t got Californian poppies everywhere. I made the mistake of scattering seeds everywhere one year because they grow nicely in the front garden but there isn’t a lawn there.

I seem to have poppies which have crept from next door. They're very pretty but in the wrong place.

MayBee70 Sat 14-Sept-24 16:27:42

I’ve been pouring any left over boiling water on the weeds, too, with little effect. Going to use the scarifier on my lawn next spring in the hope that I can clear out the weeds. At least I haven’t got Californian poppies everywhere. I made the mistake of scattering seeds everywhere one year because they grow nicely in the front garden but there isn’t a lawn there.

Allira Sat 14-Sept-24 16:22:36

MayBee70

Having had quite an argument about it I’ve told my partner that I’m ok with him using Resolva on parts of the patio. It does seem to consist mainly of iron and it probably isn’t as toxic as the patio moss killer that I use in my crazy paving. I had to start using it after slipping quite badly on the path last winter: being surrounded by trees moss grows everywhere and it’s lethal.

I've tried salt and detergent, white vinegar etc, they come back as it doesn't kill the root.
DH used Resolva in the end.

Luckygirl3 Sat 14-Sept-24 16:19:16

I am not sure that a robot lawnmower would be able to cope with the incline in my garden. It's not very steep - I will look into it and see what I can find - thanks for the idea.

MayBee70 Sat 14-Sept-24 14:51:52

Having had quite an argument about it I’ve told my partner that I’m ok with him using Resolva on parts of the patio. It does seem to consist mainly of iron and it probably isn’t as toxic as the patio moss killer that I use in my crazy paving. I had to start using it after slipping quite badly on the path last winter: being surrounded by trees moss grows everywhere and it’s lethal.

AskAlice Thu 12-Sept-24 18:20:51

My lawn has had dandelions appearing over the last couple of years, thanks to a neighbour who isn't really a gardener and lets them grow and flower wherever they want to. The seeds blow all over the place and it's near on impossible to prevent them seeding in my garden.

Having said that, I have a tortoise who loves them and spends many a happy hour chomping through them in the summer. That seems to keep them from flowering in my own garden. I also have clover in the lawn now, another favourite of hers! The bonus is that the clover stays green in the hot weather when the grass is brown and shrivelled.

I have just accepted that my lawn will never look like a perfect bowling green and have learnt to live with it. As long as it's green, that's fine with me...

Dandelions in the borders are another thing altogether - I attack them with a long-handled fork as soon as the little leaves show their faces so that they don't grown the long tap-weeds that are impossible to remove!

MissAdventure Tue 10-Sept-24 14:45:58

Thank you. smile
There are still some eyewateringly expensive ones, but the lawnmaster seems to score around the same as those in user reviews.
It might be worth considering, for people who struggle with grass cutting, anyway.

Gardening is blooming (see what I did there?) hard work.

Namsnanny Tue 10-Sept-24 14:40:16

That was kind of you to look up the availability of a robot lawn mower MissAdventure (but not unusual😊).
The prices seem to have dropped quite a bit.

MissAdventure Tue 10-Sept-24 14:31:49

The lawnmaster robot mower has good reviews, and costs £399.
From b&q and amazon.

MissAdventure Tue 10-Sept-24 14:24:32

I wonder if JML make a device to help?
They seem to make one for everything else.

Namsnanny Tue 10-Sept-24 13:56:13

Luckygirl3

I have taken the live and let live approach to the dandelions up till now, but the grass has more or less vanished now. I am not able to get anyone to mow regularly enough to curb their ardour so maybe I should continue to go with the flow.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

You can look forward to them depleting the soil of the nutrients they need and then disappearing. Well almost, I suppose a few will remain.
Of course it will be a few years before that happens.
It's a pity you cant find someone to help, as the clocks will only compound the issue.
A very expensive way of a sort of control would be a robot lawn mower.
Cutting them down regularly might weaken and stop the seeds from forming?

Esmay Tue 10-Sept-24 12:35:19

My small front lawn had more dandelions than grass .
I started off doing an hour a day digging them up .
Then I tried using a thick pouring of washing up liquid
then a liberal application of table salt on them .
It seems to have killed them , but has left patches of brown grass .
This has greened up and the lawn looks better .
But I notice some other weeds popping up so when it's dry they are getting the same treatment .

MissAdventure Mon 09-Sept-24 23:35:49

Imagine trying to grow a dandelion from seed.

They are really intricate, and all the folklaw around them is great.
A flower that you can tell the time with by blowing on it.