BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Apr 15 - 10:09 AM

Well, its not rocket science.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Apr 15 - 08:16 AM

Well, I sowed wild rocket two years ago and, to my delight, it now springs up everywhere. I have a supply for twelve months of the year. We had two big handfuls of it last night with our spaghetti with prawns, chilli, garlic and lemon, roughly chopped and thrown in at the last minute. Sublime!

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 15 - 01:45 AM

This time of year the dandelions in the yard are tender - and if you've ever eaten them, you know they are delicious. I should pick leaves from the basal rosettes and mix with the romaine lettuce in the fridge for salad this weekend.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 11:26 PM

One of the earliest childhood riddles I recall from my older sister was -

Why did the bulrush? Because he saw the cowslip.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 06:12 PM

Keith, your field of primroses, cow slips, forget-me-nots, bluebells and such sounds absolutely delightful.

Now I think I'll look up what exactly a clow slip is.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 04:05 PM

Nature rarely makes mistakes in the aesthetics department.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Apr 15 - 08:22 AM

My jungle of a garden is full of them. They make a fine show under the white blossom of the cherry tree. Why cut nature's bounty down? It looks beautiful just left to flourish.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 07:40 PM

Ye gods, Uncle DaveO, you could have been a little gentler. Take a drop of dandelion wine, mebbe...

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 03:03 PM

Dave Oesterreich - If I read all the threads on Mudcat I may end up as daft as you. So I don't.

Fuck off.

:-D

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 11:02 AM

Well, today is St George's Day. Today is the day for gathering dandelions for wine-making, according to tradition. I was driving from Bath to Bristol on the A4 this morning and the dandelions on the verges were putting on a superb show in the sunshine. Scarcely a blade of green was to be seen piercing the golden carpet. Much better than those hosts of non-native cooking daffodils that have, thankfully, gone over for another year. In contrast the Cribbs Causeway car park is a sterile place, but the sun is beaming down, I have my sun hat and folding chair, there's a flask of tea in the boot and Mrs Steve is undergoing retail therapy in M&S and John Lewis. There's no God, obviously, but if there was he'd be in his heaven this afternoon all right.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 09:48 AM

Dave the Gnome:

You're a little late. A week, in fact.

Date: 18 Apr 15 - 06:10 PM

"Where have all the dandelions gone?
Long time pi-issing.."

And GUEST,DTM was late before you:

Date: 19 Apr 15 - 06:57 AM

Where have all the dandelions gone?
Long time passing.......

I suggest reading the whole thread before sticking
in an obvious comment.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 08:59 AM

I'd say the best sight in the field area at the moment is a bit further up from the patch we rent. This bit once was pigsties (we use another set as sheds) but is all overgrown. There's masses of blackthorn in blossom out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 08:42 AM

Since my kids all grew up, I sowed my lawn with wild flowers and only mow in the Autumn.
It looks lovely now with primroses, cow slips, forget-me-nots, bluebells and such, and the best is yet to come.

Dandelions are too successful so I do reduce them by ripping out.
Daisies and buttercups take their chance.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 23 Apr 15 - 08:26 AM

Wev'e got some dandelions growing up the edge of the strip of grass we keep mown next to the veg plot in the field. They look nice there.

Pip is quite fond of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris). I think it gets to look a bit tatty but she always likes to let a patch grow in the field area. We may also have some wild poppies and foxgloves that have set themselves...

I think you can sort of do a beautiy in the eye of the beholder with so called weeds. OK there are things we don't want at all (Eg. the giant hogweed mentioned above is pretty nasty) but there can also be things you find pleasing to look at. Even on the mown (so the heads do get chopped off from time to time) patch in the field, I prefer to see some clover, buttercups, daisies. Bumblebees seem to like some of it too.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 04:43 PM

Considering their diuretic value should it be

Where have all the dandelions gone
Long time pissing...

OK. Yes, I know. I'll leave.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Ed T
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 11:23 AM

Speaking about grass and weed:

Willie-weed 

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 10:47 AM

my grass is just starting to grow here, so I'll get back to you. I've heard everything's a couple weeks late this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 22 Apr 15 - 07:37 AM

I used to breed budgerigars lovebirds and cockatiels, and I fed them the seed heads of dandelions - they are a good source of something as my birds bred superbly well.

Unfortunately my picking of seed heads resulted in the extinction of my dandelions, and only today, after many years, is there a dandelion in the garden. It is not the same as the ones I had, the flower is all one colour and the ones which grew naturally had a slightly paler yellow outer ring - and it is a more rambunctious strapping kind, mine were more delicately formed.

If you want to get rid of them with no struggle, just pick all the flowers.

I never use weedkiller or pesticides, nor fertiliser, I just compost and cut down, and compost again. These days as the weather is less varied I need to water more some years, and lift all the pots out of the mud in others. I mean less varied in the sense of getting a mixture of sun and showers throughout the year. Some years there is drought and some years there are floods, and some years there are both. I have one of those porous hoses and an elevated deck and I am thankful that I chose a house on a ridge and not on a floodplain.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Apr 15 - 09:13 AM

Thanks for the heads-up about the Giant Hogweed, SRS.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 08:01 PM

You seemed to be implying that the composites and umbellifers are in the same family. Doubtless there are biochemical connections as exposed in that study, which I came across earlier when I was investigating what you posted, but "family", and the names Asteraceae and Apiaceae, have quite specific taxonomic meanings. The latest version of the molecular based APG classification system, APGIII (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group III) does not place these two families close together. Traditionally, plant classification relies on the coming together of several aspects of the study of plant relationships, not the consideration of one aspect in isolation. No doubt DNA studies and our greater understanding of evolution will come more to the fore as time goes on. In the meantime, my carrots and dandelions shall remain distant relations only.

The discussion of "wild carrot" and "Queen Anne's Lace", with its various confusions, confirms the view of some botanical pedants that only Latin names should be used. That would be a pity. For a start, it would rob me of the ability to show off. And I do like the folk names of our wild plants. Even science can be poetic occasionally.

Incidentally, in quite a few rural areas of the UK cow parsley/Queen Anne's Lace is known as keck.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 06:11 PM

ah…ah…ah…ah…CHOO!!!!

(sniff.)

'scuse me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:23 PM

Penny, I can probably download that for free from my university if you want to read it without the fee. My source was less robust than via Elsevier peer review journals. Look up the families at Wikipedia and you'll see some "unranked" statuses that indicate relationship without specifics.

Hey, I was totally thrown for a loop when they tossed oaks out of the elm family. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:00 PM

Queen Anne's Lace here is an alternative name for Cow Parsley.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Penny S.
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 04:53 PM

There's this.


Elsevier paywall page on terpenes in both.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 04:42 PM

What is your source?

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 02:06 PM

I thought it was also, but when I looked it up just now, umbels seem to have been reclassified and is now lumped within it. This was news to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 01:12 PM

The aster family is a completely different one.

Giant hogweed is a menace. Now that is a plant that will bring you up in a rash, especially if you handle it in sunshine. Another one that will do that is Primula obconica. I have a nice pot plant of it on the windowsill. The answer is to not handle it in sunshine, I find.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 12:02 PM

Queen Anne's lace is in the Umbelliferae family (now called Apiales/Apium) and is the group with celery, carrots, fennel, parsley, cilantro, dill, and more. Easy to not confuse with other aster family plants. And the one I would worry most about an invasive plant making it's way through New England - the Giant Hogweed. It's an ornamental that came to the US via the UK and some fool from there brought it from Asia as an ornamental, and it is your worst nightmare as far as a plant to tangle with in the garden or in the wild.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 11:17 AM

The Queen Anne's Lace referred to in that link is not the plant most Brits call Queen Anne's Lace. The article refers to what we call wild carrot, Daucus carota. That's the one that cultivated carrots are derived from (Daucus carota ssp sativus). It's true that wild carrots can cause a form of contact dermatitis in some people. Best to wear rubber gloves if you have to weed it out. You would never have to do that here as it doesn't grow as a weed. It grows abundantly on the sea cliffs near my house and makes a very nice show in summer. Annoyingly, it harbours carrot root fly, which thinks nothing of invading garden carrot patches near the sea. The resemblance to hemlock referred to in the article is exaggerated.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 10:48 AM

The subject of Queen Anne's lace has been dropped, but I wouldn't like anyone here to have the purple-black lesions on the arms which I got from pulling several dozen of the wet plants. So I am providing a quotation from this site: carrotmuseum.co.uk/wild.html

"Queen Anne's Lace is also considered toxic. The definition of toxic includes causing harm, detrimental to health etc, but not necessarily poisonous. Therefore contact with the skin can be toxic. Overall, most people classify the wild carrot leaf as "mildly toxic". The leaves contain furocoumarins that may cause allergic contact dermatitis from the leaves, especially when wet."

(They gradually went away after a doctor prescribed a strong cortisone-type ointment.)

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:25 AM

Yellow composites can be a pain to sort out, though dandelions are usually readily identified by their hollow leafless stems that exude a milky juice and their yellow heads which lack disc florets (that little central pad of florets that you see in daisies, sunflowers and the like). The hundreds of microspecies (the upshot of their peculiar sex lives) is another matter, though only Taraxacum-obsessives usually bother to delve. I find the "hawkish complex" (all those hawkweeds, hawksbeards, hawkbits and catsears) far more perplexing. You need a memory like an elephant's to remember which is which.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 05:16 AM

Yes indeed, Steve. Yet another tradition rendered insensible! Buttercups are used to see if you like butter. Hence the name :-) Dandelions are also 'wet the beds' so no self respecting kid in 1950's Salford would be seen waving one near the face! Interestingly enough Dandelions are a known diuretic so there was some sense in that as well :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,So!
Date: 20 Apr 15 - 04:37 AM

Really enjoyed that "Dandelions Are Dangerous" poem.
Thanks for posting it, SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 11:03 PM

Dandelions are in the vast group that we as naturalists used to refer to as DYCs - "damned yellow composites." Though now the family is called Asteraceae.

:)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 08:29 PM

Well, we always tested ourselves to see if we liked butter with a buttercup held under the chin. Unsurprisingly, it was found that everyone liked butter. A dandelion "flower" is actually a tight inflorescence of many tiny, strap-shaped flowers, called ray florets. They are all a lovely lemony-yellow, though the outermost layer of florets are yellow on top and, usually, a shiny grey underneath. Every floret has tiny teeth at its tip. Each floret has the potential to produce a single, dry one-seeded fruit with a tuft of hairs (the pappus) atop a little stalk, the whole thing being capable of being wafted away, when ripe, on the slightest breeze. Not a miracle, but a glorious phenomenon of evolution. Dandelions also have fascinating sex lives, but that's for another time.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 07:33 PM

I stumbled across this recently:

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: John Hardly - PM
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 08:03 PM

Dandelions are dangerous
Dandelions don't need gardeners
Dandelions are artists

They ignore all the boundaries in the yard
Flower beds? They're in them and they're out of them
Wreaking their insomniac havoc all about.

The crafted and groomed watch jealously
From their straight rows and their well planned lives.
And they can see who is having the fun.
Painting dada smiley faces on daVinci lawns

The other flowers are not stupid
Just stationary
And, sheltered as they are
They know who's been around
Growing zones? Don't make me laugh

The other flowers are not stupid
They just have the plastic-ness left on their couch-ness
They have their "Do Not Touch" signs
Displayed in their careful elegance

Meanwhile the children make chains with yellowed fingers
Meanwhile the children test to see if they like butter
And the crafted and groomed look on
And wish they'd come up with that simple idea first.

Dandelions are artists.
With their outrageous style
And a bright yellow Tina Turner hair-do
With outrageous opulence that doesn't spare a Springtime acre
Subtlety be damned.

Dandelions are dangerous
Dandelions have no need for gardeners
Dandelions are artists.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 06:45 PM

Should have said that you can reverse the whole thing by swapping the two strips round in the liquids.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 06:14 PM

Before you get rid of your dandelions, try this elegant, beautiful and simple experiment. Take two small glasses of water. Leave one as it is, but dissolve a tablespoon of salt in the other. Pick one dandelion flower head with at least two inches of stalk. Discard the flower head but keep the hollow stalk. Very carefully, cut a piece of stalk about two inches long. With a sharp knife, cut two strips along its length that are no more than about a millimetre wide but about two inches long. They mustn't be too wide, or else the experiment won't work very well. Before proceeding further, have a very close look at the strips to discern which side was the outside of the stem (usually darker in colour).

Drop one strip into the pure water and one strip into the saltwater. Watch and wait for two or three minutes.

Now normally I would ask you to tell me what you see, but in this instance I shall issue a spoiler alert right now.....then tell you what you might see.

Both strips should curl up quite tightly. But take a closer look. The strip in salt water will have the outside bit of the stem on the outer side of the curve, whereas the strip in the pure water will have the outside bit of the stem on the inside of the curve.

The inner cells of the stem have thin walls that allow water to diffuse through. The outer layer is impervious to water. In the strong salt solution the inner cells lose water via osmosis as water passes through the semi-permeable cell membrane into the solution. Therefore the cells on the inside collectively shrink, so the strip curls up with the inner cells on the inside of the curve. In the pure water, on the other hand, those inside cells take up water by osmosis and collectively swell up. Therefore the swollen cells cause the strip to curve with the impervious outer layer to the inside. Cheap, cheerful and with plenty of explanatory bang for its bucks. You can eat 'em, compost 'em, admire 'em, give your pollinators a boost with 'em and do amazing science with 'em. Yet some of you buggers want to get rid of 'em!

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Musket
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 04:46 PM

And McDonald's isn't?

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 03:04 PM

I don't think it's allowed. Musket. Probably counts as biological warfare...

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Musket
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 01:48 PM

I bought one of those Fiskar grabbers that you push down over the dandelion and lift it root and all. Got some bloody long roots, some of them!

The lawn is much better since having a few hours playing with it last year. Give it a few more weeks and this year's crop will be pulled.

Lawn looks far better than before and the hole it leaves is great for rain filling.

If our American cousins want dandelions, I can always post them on rather than compost the buggers.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 11:51 AM

Better than being a tide of bearings! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 07:26 AM

Your lawn will be full of dandelion seeds anyway, Dave, which the weedkiller won't touch, just biding their time. Sorry to be the bearer of tidings! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 07:20 AM

I did get the patches last year, Steve, but a keen gardener friend has recommended Verdone so I am going to give it a try. It says you only need to be dispose of the first cut and after that the clippings can be composted. Speaking of which - We have garden waste bins. Must find out what happens to that waste before I dump the clippings in!

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 07:15 AM

Ragwort is a valuable food plant for Burnet moth caterpillars. We shouldn't allow it to seed. It's poisonous to horses, even when dried or included in silage. Horses won't eat fresh ragwort, which has the unfortunate effect of giving it an advantage in pasture, but they can't detect it in hay or silage very well. Good pasture management is vital, but there's so much seed produced in uncultivated areas that it's a never-ending job. I have far more sympathy for dandelions. If you really can't bear dandelions in the lawn, you need a special two-pronged weeding tool to get the taproot out completely. The slightest scrap left in place will grow back in no time. If you use weedkiller you'll leave an ugly round patch where each dandelion was that will persist for months, and you won't be able to compost your grass clippings.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 06:57 AM

Where have all the dandelions gone?
Long time passing.......

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 05:36 AM

Dandelion roots are said to be delicious, with a sweet, nutty flavour that adds to a stir-fry; haven't tried them myself; must.
The horror in Ireland is ragwort - cursed by all asthmatic and hay fever sufferers, as well as being poisonous to grazing animals. It's officially a notifiable weed with fines for allowing even one plant to grow on your land, but in recent years this has been neglected and now they're everywhere. I wonder if it's because farmers no longer dry hay but instead make silage or haylage; perhaps it's not as poisonous when fermented as when dried?

My curse on you, Monsanto
Death-bringer of the fields
O sing it out bel canto…

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Apr 15 - 05:05 AM

I know what you mean, Steve, and I would love to have an area of meadow where I could grow a mix of grasses and wild flowers - especially if I could borrow a local sheep to mow it :-) Trouble is in a 1930's semi with a little garden I don't have that luxury. I have never grown a good lawn. Wherever we have lived before I did not have the option. The one out front here is tiny and, for once, I want to get it looking like a lawn! At present it is full of moss and weeds so this year I am going to see if I can get it right. May go back to seed next year but, this time, I am going to see what is possible.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Apr 15 - 07:04 PM

Don't worry about dandelions in your lawn. Your lawn grasses are very shallow-rooting, but dandelion roots go down a foot or more. They mine for nutrients where grasses can't go - and then bring them up to the top. They are as valuable as earthworms. Another fantastic addition to lawns is clover. The nodules on the roots of clover contain bacteria that can convert atmospheric nitrogen to nitrate, which is a superb fertiliser, and you're getting it for nothing. Also, I love daisies on my lawn, lovely starry things in a sea of boring green (and daisy leaves and flowers are very tasty and nutritious - make sure you keep your dog off the grass, that's all). If the sight of non-grasses in your precious lawn upsets you, my advice is to view your lawn only from a distance. You won't notice a thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Where Have All the Dandelions Gone?
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Apr 15 - 06:16 PM

Just today I gave thanks for the first dandelions, marking another minute step in the slow progress of spring here in Malden, MA, USA. I have loved them ever since I was little, and I still have a 4-year-old's contempt for the grownups who consider them weeds. I tend to a Veblenesque explanation for that: they are cheap. If they were expensive, rich people would cultivate whole lawns of them.