Fall Lantana

After a long summer, lantana still looks good in the fall. Today Southern Gardening is at Truck Crops Branch Station looking at their latest trial plants. I really like lantana in the fall of year. Not only do they brighten the landscape, but they are literal butterfly and pollinator magnets. You may even get to enjoy a hummingbird grabbing a snack. Now let’s look at a few of newer varieties. Bloomify lantana are a new type of lantana being certified sterile and not cycle out of color or go out of flower in summer heat. Bloomify Red features bright red flowers and Bloomify rose has soft pastels rose-pink flowers. The plants remain neatly branched and reaching about 14 inches tall and wide makes Bloomify lantana perfect for mass planting or containers. The breeders of the Luscious lantana series have done it again. Luscious Royale Cosmo has puffs of small magenta flowers packed into clusters adorn the dark foliage of this plant. The extreme heat tolerance make it a winner in our Mississippi summer climate. This medium growing plant gets about 20 inches tall and 24 inches wide. Lucky Red lantana has dark green foliage that provides a beautiful background for with the bright yellow, orange and red flower colors. Lucky stands up well to heat, which is great for Mississippi gardens. The plants have a upright mounded habit, perfect for smaller gardens or large containers. If you don’t have any lantana in your landscape I hope I’ve given you some ideas. I’m horticulturist Gary Bachman and I’ll see you next time on Southern Gardening.