Pink Dandelion

Pink dandelions (Taraxacum pseudoroseum) are probably a little different than you may think.  Pink dandelions are available in Australia, I have been growing them for a few years.  They are a pretty little flower that should be grown more commonly.  

I wrote an earlier post on pink dandelions and after growing them for a few years thought it may be time to do an update.  All of the photos on this post are of my plants, you will notice that there is a bit of diversity in colours, this is mostly due to the age of the flower.  

Pink Dandelion

I like regular dandelions (Taraxacum officionale), you know the ones in the lawn with yellow flowers.  They have a huge number of uses in an organic garden.  Pink dandelions are a different species Taraxacum pseudoroseum, they are just as useful and perhaps a little prettier.  

All parts of dandelions, both regular ones and the pink ones, are edible.  The leaves are incredibly high in vitamins and minerals, far more nutritious than most leaf vegetables.  Leaves are especially high in vitamin C.  The roots can be roasted and eaten like a parsnip, or they can be dried and ground to use like a caffein free coffee.  Even though I have never tried this myself, the flowers can be made into cordials or wine.  

Dandelions are great in the compost, they are often referred to as a 'compost activator'.  What this means is they contain high amounts of all the nutrients needed for the microbes in compost.  If you compost something that is low in a certain mineral, adding a compost activator is adding something that is high in that mineral.  Dandelions are high in pretty much everything, so they make a good compost activator.  

Starts white and gets pinker each day

Pink dandelions look superficially much like lawn dandelions, but perhaps a little smaller and the leaves never get very upright.  When not in bloom I would not be able to tell them apart.

When the flowers first open they are either all white, or white with a yellow center.  The white slowly becomes light pink the first day, and then gets darker pink each day.  

The photo below shows some pink dandelions blooming.  The white one opened that day, and the pinker one opened the day before.  It is fun how they change colour and become more pink as they age.  

Pink Dandelions blooming

The flowers almost always retain the yellow centre.  That being said, I have had a few that opened completely white and turned completely pink.  This is rare, and I believe has more to do with environment than genetics as other flowers on the same plant had the usual yellow center.  

Pink Dandelion Blooms

Beneficial insects are attracted to the flowers.  Larger pollinators such as bees, beetles, and hover flies love dandelion flowers.  If you are a beekeeper you would already know just how beneficial dandelions are to a honey bee hive.  Native bees and solitary wasps also benefit greatly from dandelion flowers.  They seem to flower for much of the year, which means pollinators almost always have a food supply.

The pink dandelion flowers also attract and feed many other beneficial insects such as the tiny parasitoid wasp in the picture below.  

These tiny parasitoid wasps kill pest insects that would damage other plants in my garden.  I grow everything organically, so this is important in my garden.  

Tiny beneficial wasp

I don't have any photos of this, but even though dandelion are not native several native birds like dandelion seed heads.  

Some of the smaller birds eat a lot of dandelion seeds.  Superb fairy wrens mostly eat insects (and are more than welcome in my garden), but I have also watched them eat dandelion seed.  We have a few tiny birds that migrate through each year, such as double bar finches and zebra finches, which I have seen eat dandelion seeds.  

Much more interesting than this is some larger birds eat dandelion seeds.  I have seen crimson rosellas eat dandelion seeds many times.  There are a few grass parrots that I have watched eating the seeds.  I have seen galahs and even a cockatoo eat dandelion seeds.

More pink dandelions

Pink dandelions are great

Pink dandelions are easy to grow, but they need a little water.  The pink dandelion are not as hardy as regular lawn dandelions.  I have missed collecting their seed many times, and am yet to find one of these in my lawn.  They grow equally well in a small pot or in the garden bed.  They seem to do well in full sun but appreciate afternoon shade in summer.  

Pink dandelions are simple to grow from seed if the seed is fresh.  I should write another post on growing pink dandelion from seed, even though it is simple the seeds need light to germinate.  I had a plant in a pot that flowered and set seed that I collected.  This original plant died one summer when I did not water its pot and it dried out completely.  All of the plants I now have are seed grown from that original one.  

I do sell pink dandelions from time to time, I should start selling their seed as they are simple to grow from seed.  If you are interested they are listed along with various perennial vegetables for sale.