I thought I would give a quick update on the war of the flowers.
After I discovered the technique of levering the little beggars out of the ground with a spade, I made it my mission uproot every weed in the yard that dared to produce a flower. That went well for about 2 days. Then the dandelions struck back.
First, the mosquitos started providing air support. I grew up in Mississippi, where the mosquito is the state bird, so I'm pretty much immune to mosquitos. I thought. The mosquitos over here are something different. Normally with a bite from an American mosquito, if I leave it alone, it will go away in a couple of hours. Here I was bitten twice on my left calf while pulling dandelions, and my entire lower leg turned red and ached for 5 days. 10 days later, I still have ichy knots where I was bitten!
Second, the dandelions started using decoys. There are a bunch of weeds in the grass while look like dandelions, but aren't. Granted, all the weeds need to be pulled, but since the dandelions are time critical (I have to get them before they go to seed.), it's to their advantage for me to waste my time pulling up other types of weeds.
The final straw was when they broken my spade. The strain of turning up the amount of dirt required to get a good bit of the root was more than the spade could handle. After bending back a few times and being straightened back out, the metal started to give way. I gave up before the head completely fell off, but it won't take much more stress to get there.
The dandelions had won a reprieve, as I was spadeless. The following weekend my wife and I went to the Bauhaus, the German equivalent of Home Depot. There I found something I had never seen before. I forget exactly what it was called. Unkräutersteller, or something like that. (This is an example of the beautiful simplicity of the German language. "Kräuter" is the word for "herbs." "Unkräuter" is the word for "weeds." Weeds are exactly not herbs. I love it!) It was rather like a spade, except longer, more narrow, and with a forked tip. The label said it was specifically for uprooting long rooted weeds. Needless to say I bought it immediately.
With the return of the spade (or whatever the thing is called in English) the dandelions didn't stand a chance. Wow! This new spade thingy is amazing. I get more of the root with less effort that with a normal spade. Often I actually get the whole root, all the way down to the tip. Now that's German efficiency!
The little yellow monsters keep popping there heads up, but so far I've been able to pull then fast enough that they can't form a beachhead. I expect that, if I can stay focused, I might actually be able to rid the yard of broadleafed weeds before the summer gets here.
