This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Dandelion Dilemma
Luke Hunter
Posts: 3
My young family and I have recently moved into a our first home with a garden and both lawns have been neglected in the past. There seems to be an awful lot of dandelions in the lawn (especially the rear garden) which i intend to treat with a weed and feed type treatment. However, my question is, up until last week the dandelions were green, healthy, rather annoying addition to my lawns but this week they have died, turned dark brown/black and left large root holes in the lawn but i've done nothing.....is this normal and part of a dandelions life cycle?
Would really appreciate any help or ideas
Many thanks
Luke
0
Posts
Maybe the previous owner sprayed them with weed killer?
Sorry, i should have said this was over 6 months ago we moved in. I just wondered if something might be eating the roots and killing them (insects maybe?)....does that sound daft? It just seems strange that they are completely black as if they have been treated with something.
If there's something that eats the roots of dandelions then we need to know about it ...
Just a thought - are there any keen gardeners just downwind of your lawn? Do you think that someone might just have dabbed the dandelions with some Roundup Gel while you weren't looking, in order to prevent the seeds blowing onto their lawn and causing problems?
When we moved here the lawn was in a similar state to yours, and the neighbour's lawn chap said he was very tempted to treat this lawn when he treated next door's just to prevent their problem from getting worse. He's very relieved that we now deal with our own dandelions.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
hmmm good thought. I'm going to take a couple of photos later to see if that will help to.
Thanks again
Only thing that I know of that feeds on roots is vine weevil, it is a member of the beetle family I think, it lays its eggs in the soil, mostly of potted plants, when the eggs burst open the larva eat the roots of the plants. But I doubt you could be that lucky!
But if potted plants are dying off also, then you may be infested with these larva, and it will need treated!
Otherwise, I know of nothing that kills of these weeds other than weed killer and the friendly neighbour as stated by Dove