Festuca glauca Elijah Blue

The Festuca 'Elijah Blue' is a beautiful improvement of the Blue Fescue, whose fine foliage shows magnificent intense steel-blue reflections. This small perennial and evergreen grass forms beautiful cushions with a slightly bristly habit, from which gracefully trailing silver spikelets rise in the second half of spring, bringing a subtly luminous touch to the plant. Particularly resistant and very reliable, 'Elijah Blue' perfectly tolerates dry soils and is perfect for difficult areas, lovely as ground cover, border, scree garden, containers, or at the front of borders.

Originally from Central Europe and rocky areas of the western Mediterranean, the blue fescue has long been naturalized in various regions of the world because it is both undemanding in terms of soil, perfectly hardy, and very drought-resistant. Like many grasses, it belongs to the large family of poaceae. In nature, it grows in dry and poor terrain, sandy and stony soils, and in full sun. It is the origin of some beautiful cultivars selected for their increasingly astonishing blue color, including 'Elijah Blue', one of the most resistant and long-lived.

This non-trailing perennial forms small stiff hemispherical tufts, very dense and rounded, 25-30 cm (10-12in) in height and width. Its evergreen foliage consists of very fine, stiff leaves with a very bluish gray color, covered with a waxy film that gives it a metallic appearance and also reflects light as an excellent adaptation to dry environments. Flowering occurs from the end of June. Very thin blue-coloured flower stems emerge from the center of the tuft. They bear slightly loose silver spikelets at their tips. Over time, these inflorescences take on a more yellowish hue, indicating that their seeds are ripe. These seeds are dispersed by the wind, sowing here and there in light soils. The lifespan of the plant is around 5 to 6 years in poor and well-drained soil.

The 'Elijah Blue' fescue, comfortable everywhere, will easily find its place in a rock garden, a scree garden, a slope, along a pathway, and can even be an alternative to grass in dry areas, in lightly trafficked zones. Its light spikelet flowering gives this little vegetal hedgehog a pleasantly tousled appearance that softens its rigidity. It can be mixed, for example, with ground-covering plants like lamb's ears (Stachys lanata or cretica), Artemisia alba, soapwort, Erigeron karvinskianus, creeping baby's breath, and many others. Its very blue tufts are also very beautiful around Fargesia bamboo. It also adapts very well to container cultivation, allowing to lighten certain floral compositions or to fill the base of a small palm tree, a candle cactus, or an Adenium, for example.