I read your lantana thread earlier today, Bob, so I made a couple of pictures of my Sonset lantana. Sonset is a sport of the old 'ham & eggs' hardy lantana, and one section of mine has reverted to the original, that is, with pink and yellow flowers. From what I've read about Miss Huff here and elsewhere, I think it must also be a sport of 'ham & eggs' since it has the same extreme vigor. I have been noticing for the past several weeks that, as usual, Sonset is my most reliable butterfly nectar plant. This afternoon there were 3 or 4 palamedes swallowtails, 3 pipevine swallowtails, numerous cloudless sulphurs and sleepy oranges, a few spicebush swallowtails, many skippers, and two giant swallowtails nectaring on it. One of the giant swallowtails was flirting with the other one, so maybe I'll get a few eggs soon. The pictures I made of the butterflies were just about all bad, but I did get this picture of a male pipevine swallowtail - I cut Sonset back nearly to the ground every year, but it comes back strong every spring, and reaches about 7' or 8' wide X about 6' tall each summer. I'm thinking about rooting some of it and planting it in the remainder of the 10' wide bed, so the entire bed will be covered with it - even if I don't, the way it's going it'll probably cover the whole bed anyway in a few years. I've thought about getting rid of it, because it takes up so much space, but I never do, because what's more reliable than lantana? I've got some New Gold up front, but it hasn't grown nearly as big as Sonset. Here's the picture I took from far back - I've got a new lantana that I planted in another bed that was red this past spring, but its flowers changed to orange this summer. I doubt it'll ever grow as big as Sonset. Sherry

I've now got 4 seeds germinated. bostedo, its hardy here, if its a real cold winter its only root hardy but they don't reach the size they would in south Texas. Info is just plain hard to get period on L. horrida. Thats why I am reporting my seed results. I read everything there was on GW and online. The best help was the bird droppings information I got from Plantmaven along with the various trial sowings done by Perylene. The low growing yellow hydrid ground cover one is hardy too and so is the wild L. camara which is hardy all the way up to the north top of the state and probably into Kansas. My grandmother had this growing when I was a kid close to the Kansas border. There's hybrid ones I see around the city that have been there for years, I don't know the types but I understand if they are, they have L. horrida in their genetics. The 'Dallas Red' is being tested but the nursery thinks this one may be hardy too if its protected. Perylene, I hope you give a report on that pincushion daisy. I want to know if it smells as good as they say, I thought it would look real good growing among my bluestem grasses. I had the Cowpen Daisy on my list too. That is one long bloom period plus it will take quite a bit of shade and I need some color for that situation. This post was edited by GreatPlains1 on Wed, Jul 24, 13 at 19:26

Damianita does very well up north here in OKC but it needs sandy, well draining soil. I always get some seedlings but the plants take 2 to 3 years to obtain any size, still the free plants are welcome. The plus side--its evergreen and looks good in winter but the bloom time isn't very long. In zone 7 lantana is very unsightly in winter, I trim it back to about 12 or 14 inches tall and then nip it down all the way in early spring because I can't stand to look at it. That trailing yellow kind tends to gallop and takes up a lot of space when the plants are mature, each about 5 to 6ft wide. I agree with bostedo, a mixed planting of various yellows would be nice, you'd have longer bloom periods. There is a plain all-yellow annual 'Indian Blanket' that is pretty with season long bloom on neat plants with nice seed balls. Its not as bushy or prolific for blooming as a the red/yellow but its still nice. Another long, heavy bloomer is Ratibida columifera (Mexican Hats) , the all-yellow 'Prairie Coneflower' type, they are very easy from seed. Heavy bloom spring to mid summer then cut it back by 1/3 and its will bloom its head off again in late summer-fall. You can't get any lower maintenance than this one and it looks great planted close to Russian Sage.

I don't like the pale pink and yellow one so much either but I have a big one on the west side I started from a cutting back when I was collecting different hardy types that I got from a Hispanic Church that has a weedy, neglected landscape of robust hard-core Texas plants growing in a torrid spot surrounded by concrete exposed to shadeless, full sun all day in the Hispanic district on the southside along with some kind of thick, tall red-orange one (?). My favorite is a lower growing, solid orange one--an unknown type. I got a small a cutting from a big plant growing in a spot on the Paseo that has been growing by the curb close to the street for years. Its a big plant, the stems are numerous, thorny & mean; it blooms heavily and non-stop from late spring to fall in a big thick mound that is about 3ft tall x six feet wide. It produces a few seeds that produce plants true to the parent. Obviously it has a lot of 'horrida' in its genes judging by the smaller size of leaves and thorns but its form is different than the bigger and taller L. horrida's I grew from seeds I bought from Native American Plants.