Taraxacum officinale
Dandelion
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Spacing
- 25 cm, rows 30 cm
- Lifespan
- Perennial
- Sowing
- Apr–Jul
- Harvest
- Mar, Apr, May, Sep, Oct, Nov
- Hardiness
- Hardy down to −20 °C
- Water need
- Low
- For children
- Well suited
- Origin
- Native to Germany
Photo: Walther Otto Müller · Public Domain · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
Dandelion is more than just weed: the young leaves provide a mildly bitter wild salad, the bright yellow flowers can be processed into syrup, and the root is a traditional bitter herb. As a deep‑rooted plant it loosens the soil and brings nutrients from depth to the surface. In a natural garden it also serves as an important early‑season forage for bees.
Care instructions
Sow cultivars from April in a sunny to partially shaded spot; dandelion is low‑maintenance and tolerates almost any soil. Harvest the young leaves in spring before flowering when they are at their mildest. If you grow the plant in a pot, the leaves become more tender and less bitter.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
SowingApr–Jul
HarvestMar–May, Sep–Nov
Germination
- Soil temperature
- from 8 °C, ideally 20 °C
- Days to sprout
- 7 to 21 days
- Light
- Needs light to sprout
- Sowing depth
- Press in, don't cover
- How to start
- Sow straight into the bed
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
loamy, sandy, clayey, humus-rich, nutrient-rich
Dandelion is extremely tolerant of soil and grows on sandy, loamy and heavy clay soils alike. It prefers loose, deep, fresh and humus-rich soil so that its taproot can grow down unhindered; compacted or heavily waterlogged soils hold it back. As an indicator plant for nitrogen-rich soils, its mass occurrence points to a nutrient surplus rather than it depending on lean sites.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Mar–Apr
On normal to nutrient-rich garden soil you do not need to feed. Dandelion fetches nutrients from deeper soil layers itself via its deep taproot. If you want to grow it as a kitchen herb for strong leaves, you can work a thin layer of mature compost shallowly into the soil in spring. Avoid strongly nitrogen-heavy feeding, as it promotes bitter compounds and worsens the leaf flavour.
Overwintering
Dandelion is a hardy, long-lived perennial and survives the winter in the Central European lowlands outdoors without any protection. You do not have to do anything: the foliage dies back or remains as a flat rosette, the deep taproot survives in the soil and reliably shoots again in spring.
Propagation
Methods
- From seed
- Division
The easiest way to propagate dandelion is by sowing. Scatter the seeds directly in the bed from March to May or in September/October. Dandelion needs light to germinate, so cover the seeds only thinly with about 1 cm of soil and keep the substrate evenly moist. At 15 to 20 °C they germinate in two to four weeks; avoid direct full sun during germination. Important: dandelion reproduces apomictically, which means the seeds form without pollination and are genetically identical to the mother plant. So seed is also true to type. For targeted propagation you can dig up the taproot and cut it into sections about 5 cm long. Insert these root pieces vertically 3 to 5 cm deep into moist, loose soil; each piece shoots again. This method is especially suitable if you want to propagate a particular plant or cultivar (e.g. ‘Vollherziger Verbesserter’) deliberately and have no seeds to hand. Pots should be taller than wide so that the taproot has enough depth.
Companion planting
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
For your garden
Grow Dandelion yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
Free, no time limit
Notes from real gardens
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From the magazine
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