For you avid gardeners and yard lovers out there, are there any non-lethal ways to keep dandelions at bay? Our next door neighbor has an entire FOREST of them growing in his back yard, and they've gone to seed. We are afraid that they will infect our lawn, but do not wish to use any harmful herbicides on our lawn. We feed the birds and squirrels here. If you have used anything that is non-lethal to fauna and effective, please let me know! Tia!

I would dig all of them up by the roots, and use the leaves for salads. Yum!

Sheep?

I would also cull them through use. If no pesticides have been put on them, they are quite nutritious. I also think they're pretty. Too bad my yard is mostly moss rather than dandelions, but I'm content to leave it that way since I think lawns are overrated.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I lolled at sheep! I guess I could make some treats out of dandelions, I heard you can make dandelion wine out of them.

I guess my main concern is getting overgrown with them, because our neighbor's yard is out of control. The guy doesn't do any yard work at all, it seems. A tree blew down in his back yard last winter, it's still lying there against the fence, and the winds blew his shed roof off, and he hasn't attended to that, either. The miserable thing is we see all this from our house. It is a MESS back there, and he doesn't seem to care.

We have a nice variety of flowers growing in our yard, kind of like meadow flowers. They are yellow and purple, and I intend to keep those. Just not those damned dandelions. They are choking out all of our existing lawn.

My husband heard one thing last night from our other neighbor I may try. Corn gluten is supposed to work on getting rid of dandelions. It is supposed to prevent them from germinating. I don't know how effective it is, but I imagine it would be harmless to birds and wildlife. Kind of like the Shauna Ahern of weeds, although she's allegedly allergic to wheat gluten. Haha.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/dandelion-wine-recipe-zmaz70sozgoe.aspx

Dandelion wine recipe.

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“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

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mumofsixbirds
My husband heard one thing last night from our other neighbor I may try. Corn gluten is supposed to work on getting rid of dandelions. It is supposed to prevent them from germinating. I don't know how effective it is, but I imagine it would be harmless to birds and wildlife. Kind of like the Shauna Ahern of weeds, although she's allegedly allergic to wheat gluten. Haha.

That sounded interesting, so I looked it up.

LINK

Unfortunately, since the source of the weed is a yard that is never attended to, this is going to end up being a yearly battle. Maybe if you keep at it, getting good stuff to grow in your yard, the dandelions will have a hard time taking root.

I do sympathize with that kind of fight. The last house we had, I battled Japanese Beetles for about 7 years. They start out as grubs, emerge, take flight and head right toward the best kind of plants: roses, myrtles, MY KWANZAN CHERRY TREES. It was a battle of attrition that I eventually won. F*ckers would feed on my plants and then lay eggs in the surrounding yards, where people didn't care, even though their grass suffered. So, every year, I was out in the yard with a broom, knocking them down from the high parts of the tree and spraying them. Or I hosed them off and sprayed them. I did use chemicals, figuring that the eventual extinction of those bugs in my area was worth it. By year 9 or 10, I had beautiful Kwanzans and roses, with very few beetles. The ones I did find were knock down and stomped to a paste.

Our current house - first year in, I planted crepe myrtles. In June, they were eaten down to branch by those damned beetles. I don't have the energy for another battle, so the myrtles came down and I am settling for Mugo Pines, Tea Olives, Boxwood, and other plants that the JBs don't like. So, not as much color in this yard as the one previous.

Thanks for the links, Thom and Dorisan!

Those beetles sound like a nightmare! I would hate to have a pestilence like that in my yard, but anything can happen when you have a garden and lawn, I suppose.

I think husband and neighbor are planning to purchase a large bag of corn gluten and share it for the dandelion issue. Not only do we get rid of the dreaded weeds, we get to know our neighbor a little better. He seems like a really nice fellow.

In the meantime, I may consider making myself some dandelion moonshine, lol.

I removed dandelions from my yard very slowly over time by purchasing a good stand up dandelion remover and going outside most days for 10-20 minutes and digging them out.
It is amazing how many will be gone after a while.

The roots, young greens and flowers of dandelion all have uses.

I battled the dandelions in our yard until I learned how beneficial they are to bees. I figure the bees need the help more than we need to be dandelion-free. Not saying what you should do, just saying I understand your pain. I would also agree that pulling them is better than spraying them, as long as you can get enough of those tenacious roots that they won't come back.

I think you can fry the flowers as snacks, too.

I think I am going to invest in a good dandelion remover, and maybe make some goodies out of the plants. I don't mind a few dandelions, the only problem is that they can easily get out of control. I don't want a forest of them, like my next door neighbor. I am going to check out a few local nurseries and see what I can find for dandelion removers, and see which one is the best.

Thanks again, guys!

Being low-income and patient, I was able to get my stand-up dandelion puller at a yard sale for $3, which is about 10% of the price of new retail price.
Since then, I have seen them for sale used but cheap at places such as online classifieds, thrift stores, yard sales and Habitat for Humanity Restore.

I took the philosophy that I was harvesting a resource to use and let myself have a meditative experience for those minutes most days and the dandelion removal evolved from being a frustrating annoyance to a pleasant interval of harvesting and gleaning.

Here is an article talking about how important dandelions are to bees and pleading for leaving them on our lawns.

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/04/25/support-bee-population-stop-killing-dandelions

Taking them out by hand is tedious but works best. My husband hated hearing me whine about my aching back from digging them up and convinced me to try roundup last year along the driveway only, nowhere near the house and garden. Well, I'm digging the roundup ones out this year, it only delayed their growth last year, they still went to seed later in the fall. You can buy yourself about a week if you just pluck the heads off before they go to seed.
This year I'm trying to get them out the second they identify themselves with flowers. They are hard to spot, we don't mow, they have acres and acres to sneak up on us. But the way the ground is, as long as I get the ones that start on the driveway, they don't get anywhere near the house. They're obviously coming in on the car.

I have three yard demons to fight, the dandelions, really huge and angry thistles, and these little purple wildflowers. The little purple bastards are cute until their pods open, releasing little airborne seeds much like dandelion puffs.
There is a species of plant that is not dandelions but still produces very small dandelion-looking flowers that turn into very small dandelion-looking puffballs. I leave those wild around the property, but they aren't allowed in the front yard. And for the bees, we have acres and acres of foxgloves, the yard buzzes constantly once they bloom. And a butterfly garden. So far I have added about one regular butterfly visitor every year, there were three our first year, and now I see about ten at once!

We are planning on having a very nice garden this year, which will be loaded with bee friendly flowers. Also, my neighbor (the messy one), has enough dandelions to satisfy an entire colony of bees. I don't mind a few, but I just don't want to be overrun with them. I kind of think they are ugly and annoying.

I think I'm going to just pull them by hand, and eventually get them under control. My husband and immediate neighbor want to try the corn gluten meal, so we'll see if that works, too.

This is my first year having my own lawn and I want to keep it really nice. I suppose I'm a bit anal about it, haha.

RE: Japanese Beetles. Milky Spore works and is non-toxic, but you need to keep applying it.