OKC1 - The Purple Heart has come back for me, too. It's not been very vigorous, but maybe this year it will go crazy. I hope so! I think I need to really radically amend my soil - too much clay in that particular bed. Well, as radical as I can get without removing all the plants. That might explain the lack of vigor. I did spread some manure on top this Spring. Hoping that helps. If the Lantana lasts, great. I hope it does - but if not, I spent less than $2 on it, so I won't be terribly heartbroken *sniff sniff*. Love the pink, cream and orange together. I hope it sticks around! Anyone else have some supposed annuals or tender perennials come back reliably? It's always a fun surprise when something comes back that shouldn't.

So sorry to hear about your friend's dog getting sick, but glad he's okay. That's quite a hefty vet bill. As our expert Tally said above usually oleanders are so bitter that it's not nibbled by dogs, but there's always an exception. Thank you for the warning and letting us know that it can happen. Sago palms are another story. It's not at all unusual to hear about dogs chewing on the seeds and dying. When he was a young pup I saw Alfie starting to chew on the new sprouts around the bottom of my 30 year old mature Sagos. I prompty cut the sprouts back and surrounded the trees with heavy black plastic and then covered the plastic with a VERY thick layer of mulch. It's been almost three years. No more sprouts and the dogs and trees are fine. It all these years my female tree has only flowered three or four times. I carefully remove the seeds before they fall.

It seems to me that this is just an issue of eastern states nurseries not being cooperative or rules not being enforced. "2. Would you think its fair for the eastern nurseries to be disallowed whilst the western nurseries profit?" absolutely, if nurseries in qld and nsw are still growing it for sale then they deserve a serious kick up the behind. "If the government continued to allow more nursery material to be imported into WA then the gene pool of the wild plants (be they few or numerous) will continue to be stronger and varied" I doubt it would be economical to ship lantana plants to wa, and youre not going to have a queue of people lining up to buy this *rare* plant :), it would be cheaper for the nurseries to toss out their stock rather than go to the expense of having the plants treated, shipped and inspected on arrival only to find that most of the plants would be dead by the time they arrived. In WA if a plant is declared here, you can not buy it or import from anywhere, we have a regulated system when importing plants to the state, so why dont the other states enforce a similar thing for their weed species? "Also you cant convince me that Lantana wouldnt become a weed in the SW of Western Australia. Sure it might not be an issue in the rest of the 70% of the Perth area but what about the wetter regions?" the wetter regions might get a bit more rain in winter but they are still dry as a bone for most of the year and they also experience frosts. Lantana has been grown over here for decades and decades and if it was going to be a problem, it would already have happened long ago. The vast majority of wa falls into a very dry mediterranean climate, and the much drier semi arid/arid regions, totally different from the eastern states. "As mentioned there are a myriad of other species to grow" I think youll find this is the reason lantana is so popular over here because we are very restricted in what we can grow because of limiting factors such as a very dry climate that has been in drought for a number of years, very long hot summers which last up to 6 months, and in many urban areas the soils are very poor sandy coastal soils which are like dust for most of the year, so any plant that will actually survive and flower in our long hot dry summers is going to be a popular choice because its darn hard to grow anything over here on minimal water. The thing is, I had heard a long time ago that L camara wasnt sold here anymore, and I cant even remember the last time I saw it for sale, so I dont think this ban is going to make any difference to us. it sounds like some of the state agric depts have just been very lax in enforcing a ban in their states on problem plants. maybe the wa nurseries are just used to following a stricter plant scheme but if nurseries over here made noises about their right to sell a declared weed, it just wouldnt fly with the ag dept.

If it's the wild type of Lantana camara, with pink and creamy flowers and upright kinda thorny growth you can easily start from seed by planting it in potting soil and keeping it moist. Any type can be rooted by stem cuttings rooted in moist soil (even water for some folks, but that almost never works for me, grumble grumble). I'd do either method in autumn when it's not quite so hot. I like that wild type of lantana, but it DOES want to take over the world, hah. I love it though. Here's a pic of the wild type just for reference. Happy gardening!