Background history:

"Laura Harwood" is an semi-evergreen diploid introduced in 1997 by Betty G. Harwood. (I was unable to find much information about her or what region she lives in.)
http://graph.facebook.com/6548...

Photograph collection of her daylilies and garden:
http://www.picturetrail.com/sf...

This cultivar can be found in the ATP Plant Database:
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Laura Harwood')

According to the ATP database, it is listed as a mid-season bloomer, that has an extend bloom and rebloom season.





Please join in, if you own this plant! We would love to know more! (I award an acorn for performance information posted on this thread.)

Also, please consider adding a "Local Report" to the ATP Plant Database!!! Thank you!
Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Laura Harwood')

Hasn't done well here, it is very pretty when it blooms though.
Only a few buds when it does bloom every couple of years.

My Laura Harwood does ok. Blooms every year, but not a lot of blooms either. Very slow to increase. I've had it probably 5 years. Started out with 2 fans. It's only 3 fans now. Will be potting it up in my new mix this fall to see if it'll do better. Since I grow in pots, I can't always blame the plant. The scapes aren't very tall, so it's blooms are usually close to the foliege. LH blooms earlier here in the PNW than registered. Probably more like early mid. It's never reboomed for me here, though it's registered as a rebloomer.

I like LAURA very much,It is a little short but has a lot of bud here in zone 6 and increases fast.

I got Laura Harwood this spring and then read someone complain on this forum about her petals "canoeing". I wondered what that meant until mine bloomed. Now I know. Almost all of the blooms were folded at the tips thereby not allowing the petal to fully expand. Considering how new she was she opened a good number of blooms and the color was nice (she was in part shade in order to give her time to acclimate this year so I can't say how sunfast she is yet), but the canoeing was not a plus on her. Will see what develops next year.........Maryl

Interesting reports! Thanks to each of you for posting your honest evaluations. I wonder if this cultivar does better in the southern regions? Or perhaps her success is determined by very specific growing conditions?

I wanted to add some additional information about Laura Harwood ...

Some of her noteworthy attributes .... she shows rust resistance (1.3 rating !!), has a dip conversion to tet available, and is both pod and pollen fertile. She currently has 11 children listed in the Plant Database (you may have to follow the AHS link to see photos of most of them). She produces some very interesting children.:
http://garden.org/plants/paren...

AND she has won two awards: Award of Merit: 2010 and Honorable Mention: 2005

My plant of LH has been in place for a long time seemed like it took some time to settle into my northern garden growing conditions. She has plenty of beautiful blooms this year and is a keeper here in my garden.

I have had Laura Harwood since 2009. I loved the purple & yellow combination. Photos of it grabbed your eye!

It has grown very well here and increased at a reasonable rate. It is shorter than I thought it would be with blooms often just above the foliage. I would estimate height at around 24 -25 inches. When the petals recurve she is so beautiful. But they do not always do that, at least not here. I also get canoeing. I get 2 way branching and a bud count of 4-5. She goes dormant here. I get about 3 weeks of bloom here. Usually blooming in July and being done by the start of August. I have not been one really fertilize my daylilies on a regular basis. So do not no if that would make difference.

Over all I have liked Laura Harwood. I am letting her go this year, but that is due more to my changing taste and space! In a few weeks she will be moving to 2 new homes down south.

Oh my gosh one of my favorites is Daylily of the day. I got a big start of Laura last year and noticed the blooms opened so close together that i split the clump into separate clumps of 2 fans each. Its a later bloomer in my garden so 2/3 of mine are done when Laura gets going. My scapes were 15 inches tall and i had 5 scapes for each 2 fan clump. She likes to open multiple blooms per day so i only got a solid 2 weeks of blooms.
Next year i plan or fertilizing for better growth and she is right next to some yellow loosestrife which is very invasive here and i had to dig some out. Aside from Laura Harwoods shortcomings i still think its worth growing as the blooms are gorgeous and the form unusual. I think with a proper fertilization regimen she will be better next year.




I also get some canoeing but not often. Its in full sun and keeps her color very well throughout the day. Did not get a bud count but i would say scape and bud count are above average considering the fans are not big and full at all compared to other cultivars.

Thanks for all the comments and photos! I love reading the performance reviews from each and everyone of you. Some cultivars I might not have ever considered and others I was sure I needed ... but after reading that they may not do well in my climate and zone .... I will strike them off my wishlist.

Feel free to add comments at ANY time to any of the Daylily of the Day threads.

I have to admit when I first started in daylilies I paid no attention to the stats such as height, branching etc. But after posting my initial comments I looked and saw the height says 23 inches! So there should have been no surprise it was short.

I now do pay more attention to this things so I spend my money more wisely on plants that will perform better here. I do not do hybridizing but want to just enjoy the beauty of my plants. I would look for rebloomers but now know not to count on that here in my zone.

@beckygardener I am really enjoying these daily posts and learning more! Great idea and you are doing a good job in getting people to participate!

I've learned a lot about each cultivar, too!

I grew LH in zone 7 and she did really well, was a favorite out of about 1000 daylilies.

I now grow her in zone 5/4 at an elevation of 8000 feet and in poor soil surrounded by flax and snake weed and wild roses and other plants that crowd in on her. She gets sporadic water. Sounds like disaster right?

With the exception of minor canoeing of the sepals she is going gangbusters. Her buds are rather close and she is short bot not any shorter than her registration. Lots of buds good color.

She is putting on a great show right now.

I also have canoeing and sometimes splotchy blooms on LH.

The first time I saw Laura Harwood blooming was at a local nursery...Had to have this daylily. She multiplies rather well here but we sell daylilies from our home and every year that is the daylily everyone wants a piece of. Last year I vowed I would not sell any in 2015, one evening several ladies had come to buy daylilies and before I could tell DH do not sell any of that daylily he had split it with a lady. I was heartbroken and told him you had better not dig on that daylily ever again. All our daylilies do really well here because we water them out of a fish pond and the daylilies love the fish emulsion. Hopefully Laura Harwood can get huge and produce all the blooms I want to see from here on.

Laura Harwood was new to the garden in 2014. It did very well this year. One of my neighbors commented on it how pretty it was. A standout in the garden. Since it was the first year it bloomed, will have to evaluate next year. No picture the first bloomed happened while on vacation, in mid July.

Thanks for your evaluations! Very interesting and helpful to read each post!!!

Very slow to increase for me. Probably due to the facts that I did not amend the clay soil before planting, it is in one of the hottest and driest locations in the yard, and I seldom give supplemental water; but, after being in ground for three years, finally started to bloom this past Spring. Large, bright, lovely blooms. Can see where I will want it to always have a place here.

I have loved looking at this beautiful purple CV and after a very generous gift from Claudia, it was added to my list of "Haves".

After providing some extra love, it was potted up in late Sept. in preparations for a move to a new home occurring in a couple weeks.

I can tell already that it will love it's new invironment and it has also added another fan.



I am anxious to see next seasons blooms.

LAURA HARWOOD only started flowering for me today this season. It is one of my later flowering cultivars usually flowering at the end of November or the beginning of December. Here in the semitropics it acts as a semievergreen, dying back low to the ground in the colder months. It takes awhile to build up again in the warmer months.

My scapes are not very tall and regularly only reach 16". However the 8" blooms are above the foliage. The fans have increased well and the blooms are plentiful. Next year I will concentrate on trying to build the scapes up - I would like to see the 22 inches promised in the blurbs.

I purchased this cultivar after assessing the daylily popularity polls performed each year by AHS for each zone. So many of my daylilies have been selected this way. I find the polls excellent guides for facilitating decision-making even though I am on the other side of the world.

Laura Harwood is also rust resistant. This, and its good looks, make it a number 1 daylily.