These include the annual trek to Lowe's where one whole gardening section is devoted to dandelion obliteration. Senior citizens meet in the Scott's Weed and Feed section on Tuesday mornings, content that their sons have passed the initiation and now have dandelion-free yards of their own. They buy Round-Up to kill the weeds and spades to dig out the pesky plants. For the poison to stick to the plant and work its way into the root, dandelion leaves have to be wet. This means spreading the poison right after a rain and just before a long period of sun.
Timing is everything.
Waiting for the dew to appear, they spend the daylight hours between dinner and dusk rooting out the plants with the spade and throwing them into plastic trash bags for the trash men to haul off on Fridays. Gleefully, they watch as the green leaves and yellow buds wilt and die. Now in late evening, the neighborhood men meet to discuss the number of dead they have beheaded and disposed of. Something in this tactic seems un-American, unwholesome. These men's sons will never know the joy of riding in the truck with dad to Lowe's or of holding the bag of Weed and Feed as dad teaches them to cast the poison on the plants.