Dandelion is a perennial plant with a taproot that can go down two to three feet. That is why when you dig up what you think are all the dandelions in your lawn, they all seem to come back in just a month or two; leave any of that root the first time you dig it up and it will produce another dandelion. Consequently, if you use the pulling or cutting technique, you can expect to have to repeat the process two or three times before the plant gives up.

There are a number of hand weed-pulling tools on the market that work well with dandelion and other similar broadleaved weeds. In our section on Hand Tools we include a number of hand weeding tools. They include:

Fiskar’s UpRoot Hand Weeding Tool

Weed Flaming or Weed Burning Tools

Weeding Tools by Snow & Nealley

Hound-Dog Weeding Tool

Weeding and Planting Knife by Wolf-Garten

Tip - If you dig out the same plant two or three times in a single season, it will not regenerate; but that is a lot of work if you have a large crop of dandelion. Dandelions keep coming back to a weak lawn because the seed can travel for miles to find a nice spot to germinate in your yard. Solution? Get rid of nice spots for the seed to germinate by over-seeding the lawn to get it more dense.