This is the time of year when the TV commercials start making me mad. Not that I’m exactly thrilled with what I see the rest of the year—although I love the Geico gecko and the Aflac duck—but once garden season begins, out come the commercials braying about the horrors of weeds and the assertion that only a blitzkrieg of chemicals will solve the problem. Dandelions in particular have been getting a lot of screen time lately.

Now, while I do patrol my yard with a handy dandy dandelion weeder during spring, Taraxacum officinale (doesn’t it sound better in Latin?)  is not exactly the scourge of the earth. In fact, if you get on Lake Shore Drive at the Museum of Science and Industry and drive north, you’ll find the parkland between you and Lake Michigan is full of them and, doggone it, they’re pretty. A vibrant carpet of yellow and green—what we garden writer types extol as “naturalized”—flows all the way from 57^th Street to McCormick Place.

Today as I drove north, I tried to envision the amount of herbicide that would be required to eradicate the dandelions. Hundreds of gallons, I should think. And then I thought about the chemical residue in the soil, the runoff into the lake and the fumes that would drift for miles. Would it be worth it?

Perhaps the day will come when dandelions will be chic. After all, they come from Europe, and the English word derives from the Old French name “dent de lion,” which means “lion’s tooth” because of the plant’s deeply toothed leaves. However, lest we start feeling poetic and romantic and all that, just keep in mind the modern French name—pissenlit. What does that mean? Well, “lit” means “bed.” Figure the rest of this out for yourself. 

—Carolyn Ulrich