How to Care for Blue Fescue

Knowing how to care for blue fescue is important to ensure that your grass grows beautiful and healthy. Blue fescue grass belongs to the species of flowering plant in the grass family. These flowers have an eye-catching blue hue that lasts all year round. Blue fescue is drought-tolerant, making it a great choice for rock gardens. Its clump-forming ability forms uniform mounds of foliage that look like feathery straw bloom stalks. It can be used as an accent plant, in mass plantings, crevices, and containers.

 

How to Care for Blue Fescue

Blue Fescue has a width of six to eight inches wide and a height of 6 to 12 inches tall. Since they’re tolerant of drought, they thrive best in areas with high temperatures. It is deer-resistant and can be used as ground cover to keep the deer away from your other plants. Blue fescue is a low maintenance plant, so you can check on them two to three times a week.

 

How to Take Care of Blue Fescue

Even though blue fescue is generally low maintenance, there are some tips you need to remember when taking care of blue fescues, such as:

 

Watering

When it comes to watering blue fescue and helping them develop strong roots, be sure to keep the soil moist but not muddy. Once your plants have matured, you wouldn’t have to water them as often as you did while it was growing. Instead, flexible watering is recommended.

For instance, water your blue fescue depending on the weather (rain or drought) and how your plants are doing. Observe your plants to get an idea of how much water it needs.

 

Organic Mulch

Add a layer of organic mulch to retain moisture in the soil. The organic mulch will break down over time and contribute to the overall health of your soil. This can be extremely helpful if your soil needs a boost of nutrients. Organic mulch is also helpful in reducing water injury and helps in keeping your soil weed-free.

 

Combing Out Dead Blades

To keep your blue fescue looking its best, comb out the dead blades and remove the flowerheads. This helps promote the tight round shape of the plant. You can also choose to leave the flowers because they produce seeds you can use for planting more blue fescue.

 

Division

The older blue fescue plants may tend to die out a bit in the center, but you can plant more blue fescues through division propagation. The dying blue fescue simply needs to be dug up and cut in a half.

 

Here’s how: Pull out the center part by using your hand, leaving you with plants full of healthy foliage. To keep the foliage looking great, trim dead blades of grass and the flower heads to keep a perfectly-shaped blue fescue plant. Leaving the flowers may cause the plant to self-seed, but this won’t be a problem if you don’t mind more blue fescue growth. You can snip the flowers and trim your grass if you want to keep it confined. Just take note that division can only be done every three to five years.

 

Sunlight

Blue fescue can grow in partially shaded areas or under direct sunlight for at least six to eight hours each day. You can plant them at the base of trees, in containers, beds as long as it receives proper exposure to sunlight.

 

Soil quality

This plant does not require a mixed seed starter soil, as long as the soil is well-drained and has average moisture for it to prevent from dying.

 

Spacing

Spacing is also needed when planting blue fescue, approximately 15 inches spacing of each plant is suggested because they tend to grow wide (approximately about six to eighteen inches wide).

 

 

How Blue Fescue Looks in Your Landscape

Blue fescue is a beautiful perennial grass that brings texture to any garden. Its and delicate hues are a great addition to your landscape. As mentioned, it’s a low-maintenance plant and you can clean them up early spring before it resumes active growth in its growing season.

 

Here are some of the ways your landscape can benefit from blue fescue: border edging, rock/alpine gardens, naturalizing and woodland gardens, container planting, and general garden use.

 

Why Should You Start Growing Your Blue Fescue in a Greenhouse?

While blue fescue looks great when displayed, there are several reasons why you should initially grow them in your greenhouse.

 

For one, a mini greenhouse keeps your blue fescue plants safe from insects and diseases that could kill them. Fortunately, pests are a rare occurrence, but when they infiltrate your plants as they’re growing, the effects could be substantial. Aphids are the most common pests that attack blue fescue. Plant pathogens can also be a problem when growing blue fescue.

 

Keeping your plants inside a mini greenhouse lowers the risk of attracting pests and diseases. It ensures that your plants will grow healthy until they mature.

 

Final Thoughts on How to Care for Blue Fescue

Blue fescue is a great choice for your garden, as well as a good selection for container gardening. They’re often used as a filler for other ornamental plants so they can stand out. Knowing how to care for blue fescue ensures that you’ll grow beautiful and healthy plants. However, keep in mind that blue fescue grown in containers and baskets may need to be watered more frequently compared to blue fescue in yards or gardens.