Let the Dandelions Bloom: Rethinking Weeds, Pollinators, and the Stories We Plant

We’ve been taught to see the dandelion as something unwanted.

Not a gift. Not nourishment. Not medicine.

Just a weed. Unruly. Out of place. A problem to be solved with herbicides and uniform grass.

But that story is recent—and like many modern myths, is full of distortion.

The truth is far older, and far more complex.

Early European settlers carried dandelions across the Atlantic Ocean. Alongside their dried herbs, between memories and hope for the future, they brought dandelion seeds to grow in gardens and new homesteads. These weren’t seen as pests—they were prized. Dandelions offered some of the first edible greens of the season, fresh nutrients after a long winter. Their blossoms became wine and tea. Their roots supported digestion and detoxification. They were useful, beautiful, resilient.

To people living in unfamiliar land, the dandelion was more than a plant—it was a bridge. A thread of continuity in a new world that didn’t yet feel like home.

So what changed?

As colonial culture rooted itself, the relationship to land shifted. Lawns became symbols of control and conformity. Industrial agriculture pushed toward monoculture. And anything that couldn’t be tamed, anything that popped up uninvited—like the persistent, bright dandelion—was recast as a threat. A weed.

We’ve inherited that bias.

And today, we wage chemical war on dandelions across millions of acres each spring. Not because they’re harmful, but because they dare to grow where we didn’t plant them.

But still—they grow.

They bloom in the cracks of sidewalks and in the margins of schoolyards. In forgotten lots and compacted soil. They grow where the earth has been scraped raw. Their bright yellow flowers are the color of persistence.

They also feed pollinators—but here’s where another myth begins.

You may have heard that dandelions are “the bees’ first food.” It’s a beautiful idea, but not quite accurate. In early spring, native bees—like mason bees, mining bees, and bumblebee queens—turn to native plants first. Willow catkins, serviceberry, Oregon grape, and golden currant have long formed the seasonal feast these pollinators evolved with.

That doesn’t mean dandelions don’t help—they do. They offer nectar and pollen when little else is blooming in our simplified landscapes. Honeybees, generalist bees, and even some early butterflies visit them. But if dandelions are the only thing blooming, that’s a symptom of a deeper issue: habitat loss.

We don’t just need more flowers.We need the right flowers.We need complexity. Diversity. Continuity with the ecosystems we live in.

As a permaculture-inspired landscape consultant, I don’t deal in easy answers. I deal in relationships—between plants and people, soil and story, past and future.

I help clients reconnect to the living systems beneath their feet. That means honoring the resilience of plants like the dandelion—but also restoring the native plant communities we’ve forgotten. It means asking what we’ve been taught to hate and why. It means looking at what we’ve lost, and what we still have time to heal.

Sometimes, that healing starts by letting a dandelion bloom.

Sometimes it starts by planting something else beside it—something that belongs.

Yarrow. Milkweed. Penstemon. Golden currant.

Plants with deep roots in this place.

Plants that feed the bees and tell a story of return.

Let’s make spaces that remember where we came from—and imagine where we’re going.

Let’s plant not just for beauty or utility, but for belonging.