Dandelion
Last week the dandelions bloomed all over the yard and in the city park by our house.
Years ago, when I lived in a different house and was a lot younger, I waged war against the dandelions. I had a large vegetable garden to protect and I cared more than I do now about what the neighbors thought of me and my front lawn.
I dug up every dandelion I could find and planted and popped the heads off the ones that had hid from me before they could go to seed. I put chemicals on the ones that dared to grow in the driveway. It was a constant struggle: me against nature. And the dandelions were winning.
Then one day I came home from the health food store with an expensive box of organic liver detox tea, the primary ingredient of which was dandelion leaves. Later I learned that dandelions are the first food for honeybees in the springtime. Honeybees are gentle creatures, essential for agriculture, and local honey is delicious. I buy honey at the health food store also.
I could not escape the absurdity of buying organic food while poisoning my yard and removing a useful plant from a decorative, high-maintenance field of grass. The dandelions and I now have a truce. I don’t use chemicals on them, but I pull up the new ones that encroach on my garden. They can live in the lawn, but we mow the grass.
Mrs. Morrison, who had been my elementary school librarian and favorite teacher, told me once at a gardening class that she had a “live and let live” attitude about dandelions. And I think she had the right idea. After all, if I look at a dandelion like I did when I was five, it’s just a pretty yellow flower.
