IT'S FLOWER FRIDAY

It's Flower Friday and we finally have some in my neighborhood....the lowly Dandelion (Taraxacum officinal ); my neighbors like to put down "Weed 'N Feed which poisons them and simultaneously fertilizes the lawn.  I like to allow them to grow...I like their bright yellow color among the green grass blades and, besides being aesthetically pleasing,  it's THE BEST for honey bees early in the season.  I even allow them to go to seed...they look gangly for a while but after a month or so most of that seed head disappears.  Just this morning I saw some local sparrows selectively eating the seeds off the dandelion seed heads.
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Early season dandelion greens make a tasty addition to any green salad; due to the presence of a chemical called Sesquiterpene they turn quite bitter later in the season.  The yellow blossoms can even be roasted.  Mmmmmm Mmmmm tasty!  Thumper, the local Eastern Cottontail Rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus) spends a lot of time in my lawn having dandelions for breakfast.  He prefers them to my Hostas....which is fine by me.
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Best in Large.