bronze fennel and ??pests

My bronze fennel has seen better days. Its potted up on its own and the stems seem to have just kinda gone soft. I gently pulled on them to see if they were sturdy in the pot and the stems and roots just pulled stright out! Hardly any root holding it in. Im a total amateur so maybe this is normal to not have much root? My other fennel had the same problem so maybe im doing something wrong? When i pulled out these seemingly unhealthy roots (it was as if they were totally saturated and thats why i was able to pull them out so eaily), i looked at the roots and felt them - they were indeed very 'mushy' feeling, it was quite yucky! There were these little white bug, lice-looking things crawling around on the roots with what looked like sand grit dotted about on the root. Maybe the sand grit is jut from the compost? (sorry if that is a stupid question but i have no idea whatsoever lol!) But what are the bug things? Have they destroyed my lovely fennel? How do i get rid?

There are a couple of fennel shoots that are healthy, although even one of them was easily pulled out of the compost! The root on that one looked healthy with no sign of bugs, but then its in the same pot as the other bad ones were in so maybe it will become infected?

Just in case it matters, i chopped all the fennel stems down last autumn and left just around 3 inches poking up from the compost (i had seen the garden centre had done it so i copied thinking that was the right thing to do!

 

Have they been in the pot all winter? It sounds like they have been badly frosted and are just rotting off-it may explain why some are okay but most aren't, I think if it was a bug it would all have been a goner. They are usually hardy but a pot can get badly frozen.


You should really replace the compost with new stuff and incorporate some grit for drainage. I am not sure if such hard pruning is okay in Autumn-perhaps not, I do it in Spring-well it was done at the beginning of March.


I think Shiney has some belting fennel in his garden, he will know better.

 

If all else fails, dig up and replace - at the speed it grows at you'll have a huge plant in no time.