Photo: Julie Dewilde, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped · Wikimedia Commons

Sheep Laurel

Kalmia angustifolia

Also called lambkill, sheepkill, calfkill, dwarf laurel, Chamaedaphne angustifolia.

A low evergreen shrub of northern bogs and barrens, with rose-pink flowers ringing the stems in early summer. Every part is poisonous to livestock.

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Saplings ship bare-root or in a pot, usually 12 to 18 inches tall, in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated here with the price, once available.

We grow it as saplings and seed. One email when it is listed with prices, and nothing else. Or ask, and we reply with what is ready now. Live plants ship February to May and October to November.

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EvergreenShowy flowersWildlife valueTolerates wet soil

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 1–5 ft
USDA zones: 2–8
Growth rate: Slow
Flowers: June to July
Fruit: Capsules, July to October
First crop: About 3 years
Mature spread: 6 ft
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry, Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Dry uplands, the forest understory, swamps and wet flats, old fields and edges
Native range: 15 states and the District of Columbia, north to Maine, south to North Carolina and west to Michigan
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Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia
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Sheep laurel is a low evergreen shrub of the Northeast, from bogs and wet pastures to dry, rocky barrens and pine woods. Its leaves come in whorls of three, and its rose-pink flowers circle the stem below the new shoots in early summer. Its southern form, our Carolina bog laurel, is now often treated as a separate species. It is poisonous to livestock, which gave it the names lambkill and sheepkill. North Carolina lists it as threatened. Let it colonize a sunny, acid bank or the edge of a bog garden.

Size, growth and what to expect

Sheep laurel grows slowly, 6 inches to a foot a year in our growth estimator. It makes a low, branching shrub 1 to 5 feet tall and up to 6 feet wide. A dense mat of rhizomes lets it spread into wide colonies, called heaths, on open ground.

Clusters of small, saucer-shaped, rose-pink flowers open from June into early July, ringed around the stem below the new leaves. The small capsules ripen from late July to mid-September and shed their seed in early October, and the empty capsules hang on for years. Grouse eat the leaves, and it feeds the caterpillars of the brown elfin and northern blue butterflies and the Columbia silkmoth.

It grows wild from Newfoundland and Labrador west to Ontario and Michigan. It is most common in northern New England, the Maritime Provinces and along the St. Lawrence. It reaches south to Virginia and West Virginia, with a few stands in North Carolina.

How to grow Sheep Laurel

Sheep laurel grows in full sun or part shade, and in deep shade it grows thin and blooms sparsely. It wants a cool, moist, acid soil, peaty or sandy, and it takes ground that is wet in spring and dry in summer. Limy soil yellows its leaves, and windswept spots burn them. Set plants 4 feet apart and keep them 3 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, and put the native soil back in. The seed is dust-fine and needs no chilling. Sow it on the surface of moist peat at room temperature, uncovered, in good light, which the seed of its relative mountain laurel needs.

Water weekly through the first two summers. Next year's flowers form on this year's growth, so prune, if at all, right after bloom. Removing the spent flower heads gives better bloom the next year.

Each flower carries both male and female parts. A single sheep laurel sets seed with its own pollen, though seedlings from two different parents grow more strongly. Lace bugs and leaf spot can trouble it, and leaf spot is worst in moist, heavy shade. Every part of the plant is highly poisonous if eaten, and it has poisoned sheep, cattle, goats and horses that browse it in winter.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

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