Josh Clark

Even that minimal amount will help out a little bit.

What's interesting is the non-chemical way I saw to treat your turf grass for dandelions is to let your grass grow longer than you have been, like cutting it at a higher mower height.

Because as we talked about, dandelion leaves are so low growing that the grass will shade out and out-compete the dandelions.

So if you really do want to get rid of dandelions, but you don't want to use chemicals, that's a pretty good way to do it from what I've seen.

Yeah, totally.

Some states have actual programs.

There's one in Minnesota called Lawns to Legumes, which is a great title.

They launched that in 2019 where they just basically incentivize people to say, get rid of that lawn, put in flowering plants, put in beds.

You can have a rebate if you have a pollinator-friendly native wildflower scene at your house.

Yeah, I didn't look up the amount, but I would guess at a minimum the rebate is worth a million dollars.

Right.

That'd be my guess.

You think so?

There's a couple other things that I found that dandelions, I don't know if you looked at it or not, that they kind of provide services to the plants growing around them, including grass, right?

Because as we mentioned, those tap roots, they grow really deep.

And as they're growing deep, they're actually accessing nutrients that other plants around them, again, including grass, the roots of those plants can't reach because it's too deep.

And it brings those nutrients up toward the surface.

And as the dandelion dies off...

the other plants get to eat those nutrients that they otherwise wouldn't have had access to.

And those same roots also aerate and loosen compacted dirt too, which makes it easier for the plants around the dandelions to grow.