Eliajah Blue Fescue - First Spring Post-Division - April 2024

Last Fall, I dug up and divided the three Elijah Blue Fescue ornamental grass clumps that I planted in our IB2DWs bed and grew the colony (from three to six).  I originally planted three of these Blue Fescues back in Spring of 2022 along with a trio of Nepeta 'Cat's Pajamas' in a sort-of blue-hue'd combination planting.   These three were NEVER (to my eye) thriving, but they just chugged along over the course of two growing seasons.  Last Fall, I noticed some center rot and then read up on these ornamental grasses and learned that they need to be divided every few years to push healthy new growth.  So...I took my hori hori to them and created six grasses from three.  I put them back in the same location and just 'expanded' the colony with a staggered set of grasses.  Two of them were - at the time last fall - were TINY.   To my surprise, all six came back, including the two tiny ones.  Here, below, is a look at the six Elijah Blue Fescue grasses in the center.  

Flanked, on the right by the pair of Silver Mound Artemisia (planted in October of 2023 and also back for their first Spring), if you look closely, you'll see the redish tips of the Sarah Bernhardt Peony at the very top of the photo, to the left of the Blue Fescue clumps are the three Nepeta 'Cat's Pajamas' and a little further back are glimpses of a few things:  One Allium Christophii, a Bird's Nest Spruce conifer that went in last Fall, an emerging All Gold Japanese Forest Grass and some Moneywort or Creeping Jenny. 

Below is an annotated version of the same photo showing off the location of all these plants:

Red: Silver Mound Artemisia
Blue: Elijah Blue Fescue

Light Purple: Sarah Berhardt Peony

Green:  Bird's Nest Spruce

White:  Creeping Jenny

Yellow:  Allium Christophii

Orange:  One of a few Hakonechloa Macra All Gold Grasses

One thing that I'm NOT certain of is the whispy, green foliage that sits just above the Blue Fescues.  I'm *pretty sure* that those are Drumstick Alliums, but I don't know.   I'll watch these this Spring to make sure they're NOT something that I need to remove.