Chicory died

[Marb67]

Here I go again with yet another bought plant that is a hardy perennial dying in the first year. I potted it on in good compost and bought it in the greenhouse late autumn. The tall stem has withered but looking under the soil there are no roots.

Any idea why this so called hardy plant died ?

[sparrow100]

What kind of chicory? The kind I grow has long dandelion-style leaves. It has a long taproot and it won't like being in a pot much. It also really doesn't like shade, which I know from your other posts that you have some issues with. I don't think that any of them like having wet feet, so perhaps you can check with the next one that you don't water much.

[Zelenina]

Here in Slovakia chicory is a very common wild plant that grows by the roadside and in rough grassland. So it's definitely hardy. We usually get colder winters and hotter summers than the UK.

So I think it probably died of too much mollycoddling. Hardy perennials generally do fine if you plant them straight in the garden and leave them more or less alone. Although they still might die if they don't like the conditions of the spot you plant them in, like wrong pH, too much or too little shade, too wet or too dry. Some plants are tolerant of a wide range of conditions and others are more fussy.

What kind of compost are you talking about? Because the word has two different meanings in English which I think is very confusing for new gardeners.

There's the compost you buy in bags labelled potting compost or seed compost or multi-purpose compost, which is a mixture of different substances in the right proportions to act as a soil substitute in containers.

And there's the compost you make by composting stuff in your composter or on your compost heap. Most plants don't much like growing in pure composted compost, though there are some exceptions.

[Greenleaves]

Might be the the vine weevils again Marb