Every year I feel bombarded with these messages and memes about leaving dandelions in order to save the bees, usually with a part about how dandelions are the bees first food in the spring. Nonsense.

First of all, dandelions aren’t even native to the US. Do you think there were no bees here before the Pilgrims brought dandelions? Really?

Next, dandelions usually don’t flower until May, yet many of us have been seeing bees for days. (It is April 1 as I write this.) Are these bees starving, waiting another four weeks before they find any food?

Stinging nettle also bloom early. There’s no reason to let those grow in your yard, either.

Also, consider that many of us are already suffering seasonal allergies. Are we preemptively sneezing in preparation for dandelion blooms a month from now?

Seriously folks, nature has some pretty good ideas how to work on its own. There are LOTS of plants that flower weeks before the dandelions do. Here is a short list.

Apples, peaches and other fruit trees.

Maples, Pines and many other trees. This is the one that really gets me. By the time the dandelions are in bloom many trees have already FINISHED flowering and are dropping their petals… on the dandelions.

Pulmonaria, Epimedium, and a number of other low growing native ornamentals.

Red Eyed Tree frog. (I just want to make sure you’re still awake.)

Spicebush,

Crocus, daffodil, tulip, hyacinth and any number of bulbs,

So if you want to leave your dandelion – that’s fine. You be you. However, don’t go trying to persuade me and others that dandelions should be saved because they’re the first food for bees – that just isn’t true.