I usually leave them as is in the fall and cut them back hard in mid-spring. Mine are more likely to survive the winter if I don't cut them back in the autumn. Lantana's survival here can be hit and miss, depending on how cold the winter weather gets, how pre-conditioned to cooler temperatures the plant was before the really cold weather arrived, how well the soil drains, etc. Some varieties seem to be more cold hardy than others. A lantana plant that is in a somewhat sheltered location, particularly one in a southern exposure area, tends to overwinter better and more consistently than one that is out in the open exposed to lots of that cold north wind.

Because it gets so cold here in winter and lantanas tend to be marginally hardy here, your lantana's new growth will come from just above the crown slightly above ground level most years. Every now and then, after an incredibly mild winter, you might get new growth from slightly higher on the plant. Many lantanas once were considered cold hardy only to zone 8. However, plenty of people have them survive most winters in zone 7 here in OK, and a few have had them overwinter in zone 6 in OK and even in southern KS. I think that a lot of the newer ones, particularly the trailing ones, are more cold hardy than the ones we grew in the 1980s and 1990s. For a long time, "Miss Huff" was considered the most tolerant one, but now there's some newer ones that are supposed to be just as cold-hardy, if not more so.

Dawn

I'm in OKC too. My perennial lantanas I leave uncut until spring. Not only do I think it protects the plants, they will also gather leaves around them, which should help protect the roots.

They come up fairly late, so leaving the old growth up until spring will help you not overplant them as well!

Lisa

What about the annual lantanas? A friend of mine had 2 lantanas in hanging baskets - she was going to trash them so of course I asked for them. Before I got them she cut them back to about 2" from the crownsâ¦..if I keep them in the greenhouse over winter will they come back out next Spring?

Probably. I overwinter some of the more tender ones in the greenhouse, which is unheated. I do have lots of big jugs of water to serve as solar collectors, so my greenhouse generally stays above freezing as long as the outside temperature doesn't drop below about 15 degrees. If we are expecting bitterly cold weather, I give the greenhouse lantanas an extra layer of protection by putting floating row cover over them to help them stay a little warmer.

Yes, lantana have hollow stems and shouldn't be cut back till new growth starts, otherwise you're channeling water right to the crown of the plant...and it doesn't care for that when dormant.
I had l. camera and probably Miss Huff turn into very very large clumps over six winters in NE Oklahoma. I even had some volunteer seedlings that perennialized.

To my surprise, I took two tip cuttings just the night before the first frost and both took. I moved and wanted to try to take my hardy lantana with me, looks like I did :) It'll be flowering by spring unless something horrible happens.

Lantana cuttings root very easily in about 2 weeks and you can winter these over inside on the non hardy types. I've just about decided its easier to just buy new plants in spring since the non hardy types are inexpensive and easy to find.

For the cold hardy types I do a bit of trimming on the really long branches that grow sideways just to clean a bit so they don't collect such a large mess of Pin Oak leaves and then cut them down to the ground in early spring. Knocking off the dead leaves helps make them look a bit less awful and some of the twigs get knocked off leaving the light colored main branches for a neater look.

They are very susceptible to white flies so watch out for any of those on the plants or cuttings if you bring them indoors and use new potting soil.

They tend to be slow coming out of dormancy in spring so be patient. The plants wake up at different times too.