Sesleria caerulea

Sesleria caerulea, sometimes called blue moor grass, is particularly hardy and compact and adapted to difficult conditions. It is rarely used in gardens but very interesting for its compact and neat shape, narrow, deep green-blue foliage, and flowering in thin spikelets shaped like hairpins, a blackish blue-violet becoming blond in late spring. This perennial forms an attractive, very dense blue clump and adapts to poor, rocky, limestone soils, even dry in summer. A useful grass in a small space, or along a path, to structure a natural area or a contemporary-style garden.

Sesleria caerulea is a perennial, tufted grass with a non-trailing crown belonging to the poaceae family. In nature, it grows in dry meadows, undergrowth and rocky scree, at altitude, on nitrogen-poor and limestone soil. Its distribution area is the alpine and subalpine stages of southern Europe. The plant forms a thick, dense and slightly rough clump of linear, rough foliage, 30 to 50 cm (12 to 20in) tall and wide when flowering, depending on the growing condition. Its 2 to 5 mm (0in) wide, leaves are folded in a V or U shape and are blue on top and green underneath, giving a soft glaucous hue from a distance. They partially dry out before winter, but constantly renew themselves. Narrow floral spikes, apparently covered in violet or dark blue, metalic hairpins, stained with white, usually appear in spring and turn straw yellow when ripe.

Blue Sesleria is not a spectacular plant, but it gives permanence with coloured foliage in winter and the rustic charm of its flowers in spring. It is highly adaptable and non-invasive, thriving in everywhere, in lowlands and mountains, by the sea or on rocky land. It is beautiful alongside perennials like lavender, catananche, coreopsis, autumn asters, chrysanthemums, echinacea, small sunflowers, and many others. It forms a good ground cover, even in partial shade or under trees, where it can be planted with small periwinkles, dead nettles, and epimediums. In a natural garden, it can be planted en masse to effectively cover the ground and let the wind create waves of blue.