A.Malhotra wrote:

DDEckerslyke wrote:

Newbie gardeners. Just moved into a house where the small front lawn (20 -
25 sq m) is about 15 or 20 percent dandelions. Can anyone here either advise
us what to do, or point us in the direction of a good site/book/resource? Do
we dig them out? (I had a go at a big one and the root was approximately 2cm
diameter, deeper than I could get, and I've left an impact crater.)Use
weedkiller? (We've got three young kids so we're reluctant to do this. Is
there environmentally and kid friendly weedkiller?)

Thanks in advance

dd

I generally just dig them out with a knife, getting as much of the root as
I can, and keep at it until it gives up the ghost. But really big ones will
have lots of resoruces left in the chunk of root you leave behind and will
keep going for a while. So you may be best using Roundup, and painting it
on the leaves with a brush. This needs to be done on a dry day (it needs at
8 hours before being washed off to be taken up by the plant) and will be
translocated throughout the plant and kill it in one go (although actually
painting the leaves of each dandelion will take longer than just digging
them out). As long as you keep the kids/pets off the lawn for this period,
it is broken down and rendered harmless so it a realtively env friendly
herbicide.

Anita

This is commonly believed and people are encouraged to believe it by the
manufacturers,
but it is not the truth. N-phosphonomethylglycine or Glyphosate is not
actually broken down that quickly.
The figures I have seen sugest that in 6 months time 10% of it is still
intact. (This is far far more than
8 hours.)

--
Neil Jones- http://www.butterflyguy.com/
"At some point I had to stand up and be counted. Who speaks for the
butterflies?" Andrew Lees - The quotation on his memorial at Crymlyn Bog
National Nature Reserve