Country diary: It is our duty to delight in the dandelion

The drier days of March are always marked by the hum of dutiful grass-cutting on our urban Midlands housing estate, and so I know I will have to look to the gutters and pavements to spot my favourite spring flower. Sure enough, the first one I see is blooming in a crack beside a crumbling wall on the busy main road. I can’t help but let out a joyful shout, leaning down to cradle its fierce lion head in my fingers. Hello, dandelion, how I’ve missed you!

Perhaps it’s being a wheelchair user, closer to the ground than most, that has given me a special place in my heart for them, or perhaps it’s because I’ve always felt like a weed myself, inconvenient and growing in the wrong place. Either way, I have long been kindred spirits with keen-eyed toddlers who love to carry them in their fists. I’ve often joked that my bridal bouquet will be dandelions, please. I can honestly think of no finer flower. Why? Because there is no better example of nature’s generosity than a dandelion.

Pure sunshine, they are. An instant tonic for a grey day or a low mood. At a time when other pollen is scarce, they open up their faces wide to allow every passing insect a feast, acting as a vital bridge in the calendar until the rest of the spring flowers catch up. Were we to feast on them, too – roots, leaves or flowers – we’d find them a remarkably nutritious foodstuff, with, pound for pound, more vitamin A than spinach and more vitamin C than tomatoes.

Their thick roots, full of a form of latex, are under trial as a more sustainable and eco-friendly source of rubber for our car and bicycle tyres. They even offer us a rudimentary weather forecast, closing up their flowers tight when rain is on the way, like a reverse umbrella, to protect the pollen.

And when their flowering is done, they offer up a final gift, turning to bright, white moons. And yes, to blow them gleefully is to help their seeds spread, but after everything they give us, it feels like an appropriate thank you.

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