Knowing how to care for blue fescue grass in the UK is essential 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 an excellent choice for rock gardens in eth UK. Its clump-forming ability forms uniform mounds of foliage that look like feathery straw bloom stalks. UK gardeners can use it as an accent plant in mass plantings, crevices, and containers.
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 that 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 matured, you wouldn’t have to water them as often as you did while growing. Instead, UK experts recommend flexible watering.
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. Mulching can be beneficial 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—combing and removal help promote the plant’s tight round shape. 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 centre, but you can plant more blue fescues through division propagation. The dying blue fescue needs to be dug up and cut in half.
Here’s how: Pull out the centre 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 maintain 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 one can only divide 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. UK experts suggest approximately 15 inches of spacing of each plant because they 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 in the UK. 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, naturalising and woodland gardens, container planting, and general UK 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 polytunnel 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 polytunnel 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 Grass in the UK
Blue fescue is an excellent choice for your UK 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 grass in the UK ensures that you’ll grow beautiful and healthy plants. However, keep in mind that blue fescue grown in containers and baskets may need water more frequently than blue fescue in yards or gardens in the UK.