Novice gardener - new lawn (turf) advice (dandelions!)

I don't really understand the attraction of manicured sports pitch standard lawn so to me cutting every five days sounds excessive but its your garden so manage it whatever way makes you happy. Grass grows from the base so mowing regularly will help it outcompete other plants which will have their growing point cut off each time you mow. Taking a dandelion out of the lawn with a trowel or something similar carefully done will allow grass fill in the gap fairly fast and I have done this without problems in the past. I have found my lawn area is good with no chemicals used but I like to see clover, common daisy and some other wildflowers give it some more colour at times and help feed the pollinators.

Happy gardening!

It's just the seed heads on the dandelions that I'd be more worried about. Bigger leaves will still get cut by the mower and they wont have done a lot of damage to the grass if its just a few days longer between mowings. I think you found the right advice with the keep mowing but be careful also to avoid damaging the soil by putting too much weight on it when it is wet. As I mentioned I have found removing the odd persistent dandelion with a trowel in a lawn once it is established has worked fine for me and is preferable to killing all the clover, daisy, selfheal, etc. with herbicide. Enjoy your new garden.

You really don't want buttercups! All the others, fine, but not buttercups.

Meadow buttercups are the tall ones that are no more of a problem than any other weed/wildflower. However creeping buttercups get into lawns - and everywhere else - and are a menace. My garden apparently has perfect conditions for creeping buttercups, the whole place is infested with them. They are extremely vigorous and spread like a tide of foliage swamping everything else.

Right, so I am off out now to spray some more of them.

Weedol Lawn Weedkiller is readily available and does a great job.

Over 20% of our insects have disappeared in 10 years https://biodiversityireland.ie/the-silent-extinction-of-insects/#:~:text=The%20second%20headline%20statistic%20from,92%25%20loss%20over%20100%20years!

If you can resist the urge at all try keep away from pesticides. I despise creeping buttercup with a passion but there’s something very therapeutic about pulling them out.

Weeds are generally not a problem if you mow regularly but I personally prefer a little bit of colour in the lawn, gives a bit of character and the kids enjoy it too when they discover some new plants.

Personally, I haven't used a herbicide or pesticide in over 20 years and firmly believe in pulling weeds. But I do see a place for them in some situations for some people. After almost 45 years gardening, I disagree that regular mowing will control weeds and I can full understand somebody with a new lawn wanting it to be a weed free lawn. There are countless ways to encourage and sustain insects without letting a lawn go to weed.

I have lots of wild areas in my garden and my 'lawn' has a considerable amount of weeds that get mowed with the grass and flower 'short', win-win.

However the areas that are taken over by buttercup are solid masses of buttercup where I am trying to encourage other things to grow, not a single other plant grows in some of the areas and they are practically un-dig-able - I will try and take a pic tomorrow. Hand weeding the area is not an option as the garden is an acre and I am getting past that level of manual weeding.

Creeping buttercup prefers heavy wet soils but will grow in any soils. Bulbous buttercup prefers alkaline soils but, again, will grow anywhere.

I have soil that tends to acid, though it is the opposite of heavy or wet, very free draining.

The way that I deal with dandelions is that I use a trowel about 4cms away from the root and I point it in at a 45 degree angle towards the bottom of the tap-root, then pull up by the leaves as I push the trowel in while I also lever the root up from the base.You'll often get all or most of the root that way. Dead-heading or pulling the plant without the root just causes it to throw more leaves up as it fights back.

A quick spray of a lawn weedkiller will shift them no problem. The grass will fill the gaps quickly.

That's your taste. Some people like a green well maintained lawn. Usually the well maintained lawn is accompanied by rich flower and shrub beds providing a versatile habit for nature. I'm not a user of weedkiller, preferring to manually remove weeds, but I accept people may need to use it.