Roadside Imports: Chicory

Roadside Imports features plants that are introduced to Michigan and have naturalized.  Some of them are invasive and should never be planted in gardens.  Today's featured species is largely not invasive.  

Driving along roadsides here in SE Michigan in June and July will often treat the riders with a lovely blue show.  These "wildflowers" are actually from Europe and western Asia, and are known to most as the Chicory (Cichorium Intybus).

Taken along a road outside of Waltz.

They have seen use for a very long time as greens, herbal medicine, and the roots are often ground up as a little bit of fun for coffee.  I've never consumed nor grown them for any of these purposes, but last year one did end up in my curbside cactus patch, growing right out of play sand and granite stones.  You see them in similar situations along roadsides, and they tend to enjoy disturbed and open sites such as these.  That said, while they are easily at home here in Michigan, they never really take things over.  Sure, in prairie and savanna restorations they often go crazy, but once the larger grasses and flowers take over they don't make much more of a show.  This is indicative of their original, ancient home over in Eurasia, probably fire-disturbed grasslands and clearings.  They seem to like it dry, but not overly so, as indicated by the overall distribution in their native and introduced ranges; they get sparse out west and the further east into Russia one goes.

If you want to grow them in your garden, they seem to thrive under harsher conditions of neglect.  I have never seen them for sale before, probably because they are largely considered a weed, but they grow extremely easily from seed.  That said, if you have a rather open, neglected flower bed, they will probably pop up for you on their own!  They look lovely, they are all flower in terms of structural effect and dominant features, and they are great deer food (which can either be great for trying to provide a distraction or terrible for attracting them even more).