Wild chicory / Michele 5000

Michele, the wild chicory I unceremoniously pulled out of the ground and planted in the flower bed has recovered nicely. All the foliage died back and I thought I'd lost it, but it put out good new growth from the roots and is now preparing to flower again! I can really see why this is such a successful weed. A second one is doing well also.

If they get too ambitious and try to take over the garden, I'll just throw the leaves in a salad and brew up a cup of chicory from the roots! ;o)

But next year they should look great, mixed in with the Queen Anne's Lace and some pink musk mallow. Can hardly wait.

My favorie 'chicory garden' was a road side with chicory, daisies and dill - don't know where the dill came from! - but the effect of the blue white and yellow/green was very cool!

Janet and Kath~ If you look around in any large patch of wild Chicory, you may see the White variety. It's a pretty common "sport" in Chicory. Don't know if seed collected from white breeds true, or not.

Good day all, I'm new to DG and only recently posted in the brugs and dats forum. I have been harvesting seeds and cuttings from wild flowers here in NJ. Lost the whole batch to fungus, I guess a sealed tin is not a good place for seeds that are not completly dry! Any way I recently saw a pink flowered chickory growing out of a curb in Brooklyn NY of course it was cut down before seeds set. If I can pull this out of the curb crack do you think it will survive. That is if I can find it when it comes back from the root. Is the color due to soil conditions or is it true to the plants ie. will blue turn white depending on soil type?
Thanks and good luck with the chic's

You got me curious, Chazparas! I looked up photos of chickory because we were told the roots my husband roasted and made into coffee were not chickory, but bachelor buttons. It all makes sense now...

And, this article says chickory does indeed sometimes flower in white and pink. :o) http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/9308/wildflowers/dist/chickory.html

Don't do like me and try to find chicory in the DG plants database by typing "chickory" - Learn something new every day!

This message was edited Friday, Aug 24th 2:02 PM

Gardenwife. It is defintely chicory sorry for the earlier spelling error. Coming from an Italian background chicory is used as a salad green so I am familiar with the growth habit and what the leaves look like. I am really sorry that I did not have my camera with me, and really sorry that it was cut down before I got a chance to get seed. If I come across it again in seed or if I can get the root I will put it in my database when I get the chance to do that. Thanks for the link.
Chaz

I'm glad you *did* misspell it, Chaz -- I misspelled it, too, so you're the only reason I found this thread! :o) I've been spelling it chickory for years; it's one of those words I'd hear spoken, but never see written (or at least not notice).

Chaz, judging from my experience, you should be able to yank it up and have it survive. Go for it.

Janet
Thanks for the vote of confidence, if it comes back in the same spot I will go for it. And maybe one day I'll be able to collect seed from it.Thanks again
Chaz