There is a lavender that has the lay over habit and if new gold is hardy for you the lavender probably would be too. I have had them come back sometimes. I am about 15 min from ft. smith ar. so my winters may be colder than yours. I never get dallas red to come back. There is confetti it is pink and yellow. It isn't hardy here either but might be for you since dallas red is. I love them wish they would come back for me. Sheila

I read they should never be cut back for winter because water gets into the hollow stems and the roots freeze and burst and that mulching is also a good idea. This is my first year to trial them but I can't find anything except the Lantana camera types.

In Texas they talk a lot about the Texas horrida online but no one seems to sell them online. Plant Delights has them but by the time you add in shipping, its outrageous.

Last year I got the low growing ground cover gold types in August on super sale and planted them but we had a pretty mild winter so it wasn't much of a test. I planted them high on a rather hard dry hill never expecting them to winter over. I haven't seen the purple ones for sale anywhere around here.

That solid gold one I got cuttings from is huge, rounded and very robust, about 4ft tall x 5ft wide and smothered in blooms and so are the pink and yellow ones. Theres a lot of lantana plants at this place and they look like they've been there a long time. I went over there today and got more 8 more cuttings to root. They only take about a week to start rooting.

You're making me think I better try to winter a 'Dallas Red' cutting indoors this winter, just for insurance purposes.

I bought 4 of the 'Miss Huff' from TLC at the Midnight Madness Sale, it might be hardy where you are too, its touted to be the most hardy of all the Lantana camera cultivars, down to zone 6 I think.

I will have to look for that one. If it is hardy down to 6 it should be good here

Woops, I just checked online. Its listed as root hardy to zone 7 not 6. Still, its the most reliably hardy cultivar out there, or so they say.

We took a drive up to Arkansas through Ft. Smith in spring. The sides of the road were solid red for miles with Indian Paintbrush and the grasses looked completely different there than they are around here in central Oklahoma, looked like a lot of very fine and low growing native carex maybe and different trees than we have around here. I'd never been to that part of Oklahoma before, it was really pretty.

I went out to see of I could find a tag for my lantanas but could not. I have one pink and yellow that I got at TLC years ago and it was listed as a special perennial type. It gets about 3-4' tall and wide and dies back to the ground each year. Other gold and red varieties were listed as annuals but I just mulch them and wait to see if they come back at the root before cutting away the dead stems. It looks like all but one came back, the latest just breaking dormancy about a week ago, long after I'd given up on it. So I'm letting that last dead one linger to see if it does something. I got one plant in Feb and made cuttings so have lots of new ones to test this year, plus I bought two lavender varieties at moonlight madness to try. The overwintered annuals never get bigger than 2x2' I'd say, not nearly as big as the one I bought as a perennial.

I saw online they'd renamed it from horribilis, are you searching the new name when you are looking?

Beware of the Texas lantana that is sold at many nurseries as perennial. This one tends to be a thug, taking over the garden, and is hard to get rid of. I have been digging it up for several years here in NE Oklahoma. I have several lantanas that are perennial here in Broken Arrow. Miss Huff is my favorite. You are right about not pruning until all chances of frost are past. I learned this by trial and error. My Miss Huff is a shrub about 4 foot tall by 6 foot wide. Goes dormant in the winter, and survived -22 degree temps two winters ago. It's a real butterfly magnet. I have some yellow, yellow and orange, and red lantana that have all come back for years. I'm sure the root systems are really big. Don't know the varieties.

Sandy

Mia, did you find that purple blooming one indoors with the annual types at TLC? I didn't shop in the annuals area inside to check at the Midnight Madness Sale. I think I'll stop back by there Sunday and see if they still have any.

The name was changed to Lantana urticoides but I always have to look up the spelling for that. They just don't seem sell it anywhere, I have checked and checked. I might have to try seeds from Native American Seed.

Sandy, I have a long 6 ft wide strip along the entire west side of my back yard where I have been digging out vinca major. This is where I want to plant the Lantana and aggressive is exactly what I do need in this situation because I want to out-aggress the remaining vinca that is on the neighbors side I can't take out. I am thinking of it as the Lantana vs. Vinca War, fighting thug with thug. The odds are in his favor on the vinca because he is in full shade and I am in sun and downhill and thats where the vinca is dead set on heading. I end up with ugly tangled vines that seem to grow 5 inches per day with wilted leaves every summer that I continually trip over. I have been whacking back any new vines every other week to keep it back since early spring.

So the "thuggier" the better in this situation. This is the highest spot in my yard so its hot, dry and hard to keep watered. Lantana seemed perfect.

Is that invasive one sold as L. horrida that you are talking about yellow/orange or is it the pink/yellow one? Some people call the pink/yellow blooming one L. horrida but its L. camara. Horrida is always orange and yellow. The wild Lantana camara one is considered noxious and invasive in some southern states, or so I read.

Rae

This post was edited by GreatPlains1 on Thu, Jul 4, 13 at 14:24

Rae, yes, they were in the indoor annual area. I was headed to the far back for some of the 4" $0.99 gold ones but saw these instead and thought they'd look good with my endless summer hydrangeas. I think they were $2.99 each during the sale, in a small pot, maybe quart size.

My pink and yellow perennial type hasn't been invasive at all, and it's at least 5 years old or more.

I am definitely going back and by the way, I saw the haul you got at the sale! I was lazier and didn't get there until Saturday afternoon, the super bargain $4 pots were pretty picked over this year. Last year I got 4 large Apache Plume shrubs for $4 each and those are planted in that same ugly area I am working on for the lantanas along with some Salvia greggii.

I am really glad to hear you got the smaller cultivars of lantana to make it through winter. Thats a surprise, I have bought a few of them too. I got some red/orange and a light yellow/deep artificially bright pink that is not too appealing though. Something about that combination is sort of unappealing to me personally. I like the native pink/yellow one much better.

I'm so disappointed in the butterfly numbers this year, I really geared up for it after the bonanza numbers last year and the lantanas are figured into this scheme. Still, I love the native flowers, I added some new annual types to naturalize. I really like the Lazy Daisy's and the Tahoka Daisy's.

This post was edited by GreatPlains1 on Thu, Jul 4, 13 at 19:02

I looked up the two varieties, and I think I had the horrida. It was more prostrate and sent out stems that were up to 6 feet long. And it reseeded easily. So if you are wanting something to take over, you've got it. It totally smothered everything in its path.

Sandy

Thanks. That one sounds like a very good choice for this situation I'm trying to fix. I'm going to order seeds from Native American Seed. I expect I will still have to stay on top of regularly keeping that ratty mess of vinca trimmed back though. Maybe I can just accidentally trim it a little further back each time until the lantana thuggishly "takes over" as if it just sort of happened. This border is neglected so it won't bother my conscience too much.

I know this reply is late, but another hardy lantana is Sonset, spelled with an "o". Do not confuse it with Spreading Sunset. Sonset lantana is supposed to be as hardy as Miss Huff.
By the way, I have learned that you can increase the hardiness of lantana plants in border zone areas, such as zone 6b, by planting them in full sun on the south side of a structure for protection from the north wind and then mulching them really well and waiting to trim the dead stems until new growth emerges from the roots in the spring.