It's the time of year again when the mowers, weed whackers and spray bottles are taken out of storage and brought to bear on America's lawns. A good lawn is considered one that is well-groomed and uniform in color and texture. This includes being free of dandelions, and the effort to eradicate them is very similar to war. War is said to result when all other ideas at hand break down, and the only thing left is to go at your foe, tooth and nail, using whatever means you can devise to defeat them. Our choice of weapons: machines for cutting and uprooting, plus sprays and powders which are disturbingly similar, chemically, to ones we’ve used in wars against people.

The dandelion counters with heroic tenacity and an airborne reproductive and dispersion technique developed through the ages, even from a time when there was no such thing as a "lawn."

So far, the dandelions are enjoying a resounding victory.

They, and the companies who sell the chemical and mechanical death technology designed to kill them and keep those lawns well-groomed, uniform, and subjugated to the desires of humans.

Don't buy into that subtext? Then consider that the nation's lawns are themselves invaders into most if not all of the areas where they've been introduced. They aren't composed of native grasses, and even if they were, why does lawn cultivation mean the elimination of all other plants — plants which are native, thrive under natural conditions, and which offer a nutritional and pharmaceutical bonus? The dandelion, as an example, is edible, and is rich in B-vitamins and is helpful in maintaining proper liver and kidney function. How much does it cost to buy supplements offering the same benefits?

Also consider that lawns are among the most highly-irrigated crops in our country. That's a lot of water devoted to a plant which isn't native, requires the use of mechanical and chemical agents to create a safe environment for it, and which isn’t edible by people! The lawn is a symbol that human kind, with its big brains, has fought nature for survival, and won. And because nature got it wrong the first time, we’re re-making it the right way. The idea is that we take nasty, "undeveloped" land, and reshape it, groom it, and reconfigure it into proper, "developed" land, which can be sold for a nice chunk of change. Sans dandelions, of course.

What we have here is a pretty ridiculous picture of how things are, but this basically IS how things are, so...how to rectify it? Let’s get back to that idea that war happens when all of our original ideas fail, leaving us to go caveman on our enemy. If we apply some imagination to the situation instead of death technology, we can save loads of money and anguish by letting go of the modern lawn as a symbol of our "greatness" and enjoy nature’s greatness and generosity instead.

The dandelions show no sign of letting up. They keep doing what works for them, blooming and parachuting themselves far and wide despite the maniacal efforts of lawn owners. What's that definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result?



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