Caught myself calling dandelions 'weeds' in a gardening post yesterday

I was about to recommend pulling every dandelion from a new flower bed until I remembered reading that their taproots actually break up compacted clay soil better than any tool I own. Then I looked up how many pollinators depend on those early spring blooms and realized I've been killing off free soil helpers for years. Has anyone else shifted how they treat so-called weeds after learning what they actually do underground?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.phoenix24d ago

Last year I proudly pulled 47 dandelions before realizing I'd just done free aeration work for the neighbor's yard.

alice99124d ago

Pull all of them tbh. Letting weeds run wild just means they'll take over every inch of the garden and strangle the plants you actually wanted.