Bees, butterflies and hummingbirds love this colorful plant native to Texas

This week’s storm reminded me of a week my dad and I spent stuck back in the hills between Uvalde and Camp Wood. I was about to go into high school, and I’d spent that summer helping him with his research for Texas A&M. He was a range management specialist, and he was looking for herbicides to control plants poisonous to Texas livestock.

That particular week we were 8 miles east of Texas Highway 55. We had to navigate a low-water crossing of the Nueces River and go through seven dry draws to get to the old farm house we used as our base camp.

The day before we were to head back to College Station a tropical storm blew in off the coast and unloaded 19 inches of rain in 24 hours. (My job was to empty the gauge, so I’ll vouch for those numbers.) We were safe, but we were flooded in for six days until a county road crew could come to our rescue.

During that summer, and especially during that week, I had a lot of time to learn to appreciate lantanas that graced those rocky hillsides. I was already an admitted plant nerd, and I admired how they sought out precious moisture tucked way back beneath the large boulders. And I found them on the banks of those draws where moisture seeped after showers. Some of those shrubby plants grew to be 5 and 6 feet tall and wide, and they bloomed all summer in spite of the sun and the heat. That impressed me. Bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds loved them. And so, after that summer, did I.

That native orange lantana is Lantana urticoides, formerly known as L. horrida. It’s found growing naturally from East Texas clear across the southern half of the state, into the Texas Hill Country and the Big Bend, on to southern New Mexico, and Arizona, and through much of Mexico.

It’s listed as a “shrubby perennial,” meaning that it will grow taller and taller in areas where the plants don’t freeze (USDA Hardiness Zone 8 and warmer), or that it will freeze to the ground in warmer parts of Zone 7 and then come back from its root clumps the following spring.

As a kid I saw that particular lantana growing in older landscapes. Now, I still do see it in older neighborhoods standing strong. I also see it being used in heirloom gardens and in carefully designed perennial plantings where people know that they’re getting a truly woody, perennial type of lantana.

Many improved selections

Over the past several decades there have been numerous upgrades in this venerable plant.

▪ Shorter types. Several growers have introduced their own proprietary collections of low-growing lantanas. Their growth forms are spreading rather than upright/shrubby. Mature heights without trimming stay between 12 and 16 inches, so they’re great in large landscape beds.

▪ More colors. Of course, we still have oranges, rusts, and yellows, but many of these newer selections offer pinks, near-reds, and lavenders, sometimes even white.

▪ Sterile hybrids. Some of the improved forms do not set seed. Not only does that remove concerns about seedlings germinating and becoming invasive, but it also allows the plants to expend all their energies on producing more flowers instead of fruit. It’s not uncommon for fruiting types to have cycles of flowering and non-blooming times, while the sterile selections are essentially non-stop bloomers.

What it takes to succeed

Lantanas’ needs are few. Give them full sun, well-prepared garden soil, constant moisture, and a high-nitrogen fertilizer to prompt new growth.

The full sun part is non-negotiable. Nothing will make up for it, and without it the plants will become vegetatively “shy” bloomers.

Soil should be loose and highly organic. That’s easy enough if you’re planting lantanas in large patio pots. If you’re preparing a landscape bed, incorporate 2 inches of sphagnum peat moss, 1 inch each of finely ground pine bark mulch, well-rotted compost, fully decomposed manure, and expanded shale, and rototill it 10 inches into your native soil.

You will see lantanas being listed as “drought tolerant.” And I’ve just written that they’re native to some of our state’s more arid areas. But please remember that I also mentioned that they grow where their roots can develop beneath large boulders that hold moisture. In a landscape you want to keep them growing by watering them as their soils begin to dry slightly to the touch.

Along that very same line, you want to maintain high levels of nitrogen by feeding your plants regularly. Use a water-soluble plant food that is highest in the first of the three numbers of its analysis. That will promote vigorous new growth, and that will keep the plants sending out new buds and new blooms.

There have been times in my lantana career when I’ve given my plants a very light trim with hedge shears in late summer if they’re looking unkempt. I do so to even them up and to promote uniform regrowth. Once again, new growth means new flowers, and that’s a good thing.

What about the winter?

You don’t have the best chance of getting lantanas to come back after a North Texas winter, especially after extreme ones like we’ve been having recently. However, if you do want to try, trim your plants the day after the first killing freeze. I like to leave 2 inches of stems showing so I can see where the clumps are since lantanas are usually among the last perennials to reemerge in the spring. Pile several inches of compost or tree leaves over the clumps to moderate the rates of freezing and thawing. By mid- to late March you should know whether you’ve been successful. Note: the trailing lavender type is least winter hardy in my experience.