:: Lantana ::
Verbenaceae camarra “confetti”
Verbenaceae horrida “yellow-orange”

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:: 05.03.08 ::

Fruity Pebbles

The Lantana is just starting to bloom…seems like it’s getting a late start this year?

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:: 05.18.05 ::

Butterfly Favorite

Lantana is a sprawling bushy plant. I have found them scattered about in odd places in the garden and around some trees. I would like to move them all into one location, but I have not had success in digging them up and having the plant live after being transplanted.

The blooms are very pretty little flowers and I have a variety of colors. In the winter they die back and leave woody white stems (see image below on this page). This year I pruned the stems back to see if I can train it to be more upright and bushy rather than like a vine that spreads along the ground.

I have documented one of my plants as it sprouted and flowered so that you can see how they develop into a blooming plant…

This first image shows the long woody limbs that I trimmed back in the early winter after the leaves had fallen off. The plant was protected by a mound of oak tree leaves over the winter and then cleared away in early spring as the plant began to put out leaf sprouts.

Early spring, the leaf mulch and garden debris has been cleared away. You can see the plant just beginning to get small leaves developing randomly along the stems and at the crown.

The leaves develop fast and by late spring the plant is looking “bushy”. The stems will continue to put out new shoots and leaves with the limbs getting longer and sprawling out over the summer.

By early summer there are flowers blooming. They will continue to bloom heavily until the hottest part of the summer. They pick up their blooming again in fall as temperatures cool down.