©voyager, all rights reserved
People have started mowing their lawns and for the most part the dandelions will be kept cut down. Still, some dandelions will find places to live and thrive and secretly that pleases me. Mr. Voyager and I often wish that we could let our grass grown long and wild and full of colourful weeds, but that’s frowned upon when you live in the city so we comply and cut. Maybe someday people will realize that all that mowing and watering and tending to grass is unnatural and bad for us and the environment.
Beautiful! Our property goes feral most of the time. It does get somewhat mowed now and then, but mostly things are just allowed to grow.
I mow the lawn to shut up my neighbors but I don’t discriminate as to what grows in it and I love the brightness of dendelions.
We have to mow the garden otherwise I would not be able to go outside and do anything since I am allergic to most grass pollens. Since I live in the middle of a huge meadow, the air-borne pollens get to me anyway in copious amounts, but at least I can avoid the skin rash es that I get from contact with grass.
Otherwise I would not bother. I love the flowers.
I love my well manicured lawn. But it is surrounded by a much larger area of wildflower beds and old orchid that is going back to forest. The dandelions have ample room to spread themselves out.
Living less than an eighth of a mile from the Muddy Creek, I mow the yard to attempt to limit the amount of mosquitoes. They harbor in tall grass, once hatched, to await the passing of warm-blooded creatures. The females need blood to form more eggs, and are close enough here to fly back to the creek to lay eggs.
I have pretty good control over my “flinch” response, when I’m aware of a mosquito landing on me, and I can slap them before they fly away. To me that is future pest control without pesticides, as meager as it is.
I could also spray my yard with multiple pesticides, as a lot of people do here, but I’m not willing to poison my yard/home/wife/me/dog(wish it were still dogs)/cats/rats/vegetables/fruit trees, or just MY HOME.
There are enough absentee owners in town that can’t, or won’t mow yards often enough to keep the dandelions at bay.
The old School is now owned by an out-of-state construction company that hasn’t shown up here yet this year, and last weeks glorious show of Dandelions is now a white beard show of seed, nearly ready to fly with the wind!
At 50 yards from home, from 75 miles away, I’ve not stopped and taken pictures, much to my chagrin after starting this post. The display of yellow last week, and the equally impressive display of white this afternoon, still didn’t dissuade me from my goal of getting a big hug from C, and howls of delight from Jayne.
Being Home is Best. Dandelions good, mosquitoes, not so much, but tolerable.
I control dandelion spread (though not population) by keeping them out of the roses, but that’s about it -- we have to keep the grass short because of ticks, but our fine selection of free-range short-stem wildflowers, as well as at least six different grasses, thrives (I’ve noticed, with dandelions and some of the
margaritasdaisies, they grow back on stems too short to mow down, so the grass around them gets hacked off, but the flowers remain…).Also, since there’s been super-hot (for May) temperatures and no rain for two weeks, we’ve been putting out the sprinkler for about an hour each evening, and holy shit the flocks of starlings and fieldfares that have collected! I watch them fight over worms, and there’s the cutest ever momma fieldfare with her mostly-grown babby following her around and chirping every time she moves more than a couple metres away.
dakotagreasemonkey
It is; yay that you are. *hugs* and ♥ for you.
Beautiful photos, love the detail here. Thanks.
Confession time here : I know dandelions are weeds (here at least -- albeit somewhat useful, edible ones) but I still love to blow the seeds off the the flowerheads.