Hairy Laurel

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as slow, like our mountain laurel, about a foot a year. It is a small evergreen shrub 1 to 2 feet tall, rarely 4, spreading to erect, with tiny leaves under half an inch long.

Pink saucers about half an inch across open singly or a few together along the stems from May into July. Each is red near the anther pockets, with a ring of red spots, and the bristly sepals stay after the corolla falls. The seed is dust-fine.

It grows wild on the coastal plain of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Alabama, and rarely Mississippi. Its home is open sandy savannas, sandhills and pine barrens, where ground fires once swept through.

How to grow Hairy Laurel

Hairy laurel needs full sun on open, sandy, acid ground, like the sandhills and savannas where it grows wild. It is tender, so it suits warm gardens. Set plants 2 feet apart and keep them 2 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them in spring or fall, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the sandy soil back in, and mulch lightly with pine needles, clear of the stems. The seed stays dormant until heated, as by a ground fire. Tests broke that dormancy by holding the damp seed at 140 to 194 degrees for 10 minutes to 19 hours, the hotter the shorter. Then sow the dust-fine seed on the surface of moist peat at room temperature, in light.

Water through dry spells in the first summer. It needs no pruning.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, and its anthers sit in pockets of the corolla until an insect springs them. Its relative mountain laurel sets more seed with pollen from another plant, so plant two hairy laurels from different parents for seed. Its relatives mountain laurel and sheep laurel are highly poisonous if eaten, so treat it the same and keep it from grazing animals.