I'm sure many of you have received letters about your dandelions. I agree with the HOA, the letters should be sent if your yard has been neglected and does not meet community standards.

However, when does a reasonable mind come into the mix? I drive by homes that are abandon and the lawns left to seed. Some of the homes are rentals where apparently the landlord failed to make clear who was responsible for care. No matter, there are at least 2 of these homes on each block. Those of us that care for our property cannot remain weed free with that much seed blowing in the wind.

To compound the issue, school properties seem to be saving money by not buying weed and feed for their grounds. No matter how much toxic spray comes out of the Elite Grounds trucks covering our beautiful wild planting areas, the weeds still flourish. I shutter to think of how many chemicals are dumped on the park areas to contain the weeds, but I digress.

Once a lawn is covered with weed seed, it's a long road to recovery. The seeds will continue to germinate over the entire season and many seeds will remain dormant to plague the lawn the following season. A program must be instituted to return to a relatively weed free lawn and garden. It takes a while especially when so many areas within the community are readily donating new seed everyday.

So back to that reasonable mind. The HOA sends a weed letter. Then within 21 days, they send another weed letter, and so on, and so on. Now having read my rambling above, how can it be reasonable to think that a homeowner can get a lawn back into compliance in that timeframe? It is impossible for a lawn to fully recover in that amount of time, even if you start working on day one.

I'm in NO WAY condoning bad gardening. In fact, I'm pretty darn upset with my block/neighbors/community lack of lawn courtesy.

I'm just saying, if you're going to write to a Dandelion, know how long it takes for him to pack his, kids and grandkids bags and get the heck out. I doesn't matter if you dig or spray, it's gonna take a while.