If you have been reading this column for more than a month or two you know my greatest garden goal is to eradicate what’s left of the lawn. So unless I’ve confessed this before and forgotten (always possible) you might be surprised if I admit to loving the contrast of crisply shorn greenness framing my garden. A few hours after mowing, when dots of yellow, flashes of greyish white, and spills of blue-purple appear again within the green—as if the garden has colored outside the lines—I can almost begin to understand the lawn’s popular appeal.

Bring on the dandelions, violets, creeping Charlie, and clover.

That sentiment isn’t mainstream. Not if a multi-bazillion-dollar toxic chemical industry built around keeping lawns free of any color, any life at all besides Fenway green, is anything to go by. But everyone knows such sterility comes at a tremendous personal and environmental cost (to say nothing of the wallet drain) or we wouldn’t all tiptoe a wide berth and bring the dog to heel around the little signs posted by law at the edges of recently treated lawns.

Isn’t it time to stop poisoning ourselves, our loved ones, neighborhood pets, and the environment all for the sake of a few plants that never hurt anyone? In fact, some lawn “weeds” have undeniable benefits.

Dandelions especially, and they get such a bad rap! Why? Aside from interrupting precious greensward, I can only guess it’s because they grow too willingly in any old sidewalk crack to be considered worthy of admiration and cultivation.

Dandelions (Taraxacum officianale) are native to right here and almost everywhere else in the world. I mention that because native species are currently enjoying a bit of a renaissance due to a renewed interest in ecology and understanding of their important place on the food chain. Dandelions happen to be one of the earliest, most nutritious, and consistent food sources for wild and domestic pollinators. In Bee School I learned that beekeepers quit worrying about their colonies’ winter survival as soon as the dandelions begin to bloom. There’s one very good reason—all you really need—to let them live in your lawn.

Foodies and resourceful home cooks have known dandelion’s worth all along too. The young greens have more Vitamins A, C, and K, a more piquant flavor, and are much easier to grow than spinach.

If you’re into grazing, (and unless chemicals are ever sprayed on your lawn, why wouldn’t you be?), Rhode Island’s state flower, Viola sororia, the common blue violet (which in many lawns blooms white with a blue throat and reads as gray from a distance) is edible too; high in Vitamins A and C. Although the flowers aren’t much visited by pollinators, the leaves host fritillary butterflies (during the caterpillar stage). I’d love to see more of those flying around.

Creeping Charlie (a.k.a. ground ivy or Glechoma hederacea) on the other hand, has very few redeeming qualities. It does happen to be edible (slightly minty; a little bitter) but is extremely eager to infest the soft soil of my garden and it isn’t even native. I simply can’t help loving its purple pools in the grass, and the way it blooms through dead-lawn droughts.

You know already know how clover (whose blooms the bees and I are still looking forward to) was never a weed until weed-killer destroyed it. Before being framed as a criminal it was included in lawn seed mixes for its nitrogen-fixing benefits. It’s a built-in, keep-your-wallet-in-your-pocket, fertilizer. No wonder the lawn care companies want it gone.

The grass isn’t always greener but I wish it were. To truly be “green”: safe for humans and pets to walk on, eat from, and live near, and non-toxic to bees, butterflies, and insects of all stripes, your lawn should be a whole lot more colorful.

Kristin Green is a Bristol-based gardener and author of 'Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big with 150 Plants that Spread, Self-Sow, and Overwinter'. Follow her blog at trenchmanicure.com.