ELYMUS glaucus

Beautiful small grass, perennial and rustic, with a bushy habit and fast growth, native to western North Americans: when fully developed it grows 50 cm tall and a little larger. Equipped with a widespread root system and sometimes short rhizomes or stoloniferous stems, it appears as a thick and dense tuft of thin ribbon-like leaves with a fabulous grey-blue color. In late spring, thin stems emerge surmounted by slender little spikes.

Suitable to any type of soil, as long as it is well drained, and to sunny positions, it is salt and sea wind tolerant. It tolerates even intense and prolonged cold winters. At the vegetative restart in spring it does not require special care: perhaps some years it may be advantageous to practice a drastic pruning that reduces the head to a few centimeters from the ground level and stimulates a more compact and rich development. Perfect on hanging gardens, terraces and balconies in rather large containers, in the ground it can be used with other flowering herbaceous perennials, for which it will form the ideal neutral background or at the base of Mediterranean bushes and shrubs: finally, a fascinating use can be to place it in sequence to create an unusual border.