Type: Biennial summer flower
Height: 100-200cm
Placement: Full sun
Quantity: Min. 50 seeds
Germination rate: 75%
Plant spacing: 25x25cm
Colour: Light blue
Sowing: April-May in 1cm depth
Flowering: July-October. Blooms only in the second year.
Chicory is a familiar flower for those travelling on the road. Chicory is known as a small roadside flower that pops up where other plants have given up. Chicory is a real fighter! But did you know that if you give chicory the right conditions, you can actually grow a plant up to 2 metres tall with an abundance of beautiful sky blue flowers and an enormously vigorous growth? The first year, the chicory only produces leaves (which can be eaten as a bitter salad) and a very strong taproot. In the second year, tall branched stems with a profusion of flowers appear - the chicory flowers over several months, but don't be fooled when you realise in the evening that it has stopped flowering - the chicory closes its flowers as it gets dark. The next morning it blooms again just as beautifully.
The chicory is almost impossible to get rid of because the long taproot is difficult to dig up, but if it is in a place you don't want it, you can be glad that it is only biennial. This means that if you let it flower, it will die out after flowering. But who wouldn't want chicory in their garden?
At Lindelyst we had a whole field of chicory in 2022 and what a floral paradise!!! It is one of the most beautiful and life-affirming plants that nature can create.
