h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah, leave them be. They feed the bees, and they can feed you if you like. The leaves make a great salad ingredient. You can buy them in a plastic refrigerated bag from the supermarket, but why bother when they are all over the place?

I've watched sparrows pecking at the flower heads too, so it's not just us and the bees.

A lovely flash of bright colour on an otherwise monochrome lawn, good for the bees, good for the birds, good for us. Just let them be, and you save yourself the work of getting rid of them, too. Because believe me, they'll win anyway - they are more determined to seed than you are to prevent them (unless you are a weird monomaniac with nothing else to do all day).

I agree about the dandelions and to an extent daisies.
But when your lawn are being taken over by creeping buttercup, there is not much you can do without resorting to the nuke them from space option which also kills the other less menacing plants.

Yes, I have exorcised the gardening spirit of my brainwashed dad.

Yesterday, out in the country, we wondered at the fields and fields of gorgeous dandelions and other wild things. At the farm, they were really HUGE. My sister's tip about weeds: put her two goats down. They LIKE weeds. And the Aussie shepherd dog likes to herd goats.(The goats don't like it so much.)

Walking around town, we realised that everybody's got dandelions. And those tiny violets. And little daisies. The air's full of lilacs, but somebody planted those.

It's all growing like mad out there, and Elektra spotted a hummingbird...

I think the Guardian have been lurking here - I spotted this piece today: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2015/may/12/dandelions-pollinators-wildlife-garden

Aha! We are more influential than we think.

Now, we'll see what happens when we cover this summer's Lawn Mower Drag Races...