Gadenin日本語Get the appDecide first whether it goes in the ground at all
Lantana is a serious invasive weed through much of the warm world. It has escaped gardens into pasture, bushland and riverbanks across the subtropics and warm temperate regions, forms dense thickets that nothing else grows through, and is a declared or noxious weed in a number of countries and states where planting or moving it carries legal restrictions. Birds swallow the ripe black fruit and carry the seed far beyond your fence.
So the first decision is not where to dig the hole; it is whether to dig one. If lantana naturalises where you live, grow it in a container standing on paving or gravel rather than on open soil, and deadhead through the season so that fruit never ripens. If it does not naturalise where you live because winters kill it, you can plant it out freely and treat it as an annual or a plant you lift each autumn.
The berries are the other reason people choose a pot. Unripe green fruit is poisonous to people, dogs and livestock, and a raised container keeps it well away from a toddler's eye level. Whatever you decide, plan on pulling any seedlings that appear in your beds while they are small enough to come out by hand.
| Your situation | Where to plant | Ongoing obligation |
|---|---|---|
| Lantana is declared or naturalising locally | Container on hard standing only | Deadhead weekly; remove every seedling; never compost fruiting prunings |
| Warm climate, no local weed listing | Ground or container, hottest spot | Deadhead to limit seeding; watch for volunteers under bird perches |
| Cold winters kill it outright | Ground as a summer plant, or a pot to overwinter indoors | Watch for whitefly on any plant brought under cover |
| Small children or grazing animals have access | Raised container out of reach | Deadhead so no green fruit is ever present |
Choosing the spot
Give lantana the hottest, brightest, driest place in the garden. Six hours of direct sun is the minimum and eight or more is what turns it into a solid dome of flower heads. A south or west-facing wall, a paved courtyard that radiates heat into the evening, a raised bed above a driveway: these are ideal. Shade produces long soft stems with a few flowers at the tips and nothing worth looking at underneath.
Drainage matters far more than fertility. Lantana tolerates thin stony ground, drought and salt spray, and it dies in cold wet soil over winter. On clay, either improve the whole bed with grit or raise the planting position by four inches (10 cm) so that water drains away from the crown rather than collecting around it. Digging a single hole and filling it with compost creates a sump and is worse than doing nothing.
Leave room for airflow. A plant jammed against a fence with stagnant humid air around its base is the one that develops mildew on the lower leaves and holds whitefly. You should be able to see daylight through the middle of a mature plant.
Preparing the ground and setting the plant
Plant into the soil you already have and resist the urge to improve it. Lantana flowers hardest in poor dry ground and sulks if fed: enriched soil gives you a big leafy plant with few flower heads and soft growth that whitefly and aphids move onto first. The only amendment worth making is grit or coarse sand where drainage is poor.
Wait until the ground is genuinely warm, above about 60F (16C), and all danger of frost has passed. Lantana planted into cold soil sits and does nothing for weeks, while one planted a fortnight later into warm ground overtakes it. The plant is tender: stems are damaged around 28F (minus 2C).
Water the plant in its container an hour before planting so the root ball is damp and holds together. If the roots are circling the outside of the ball, tease the bottom third loose with your fingers before setting it in.
- Dig a hole the same depth as the root ball Make it about twice as wide but no deeper than the root ball is tall, so the plant cannot settle and end up with its crown below soil level. Loosen the sides of the hole if the soil is compacted, and break up the base with a fork without adding anything to it.
- Set the plant with the crown flush or slightly proud The top of the root ball should sit level with the surrounding soil, or half an inch (1 cm) above it on heavy ground. A crown buried below grade collects water and rots over a wet winter. Lay a cane across the hole to check the level before backfilling.
- Backfill with the excavated soil and firm gently Return the same soil you dug out, working it in around the sides with your fingers so there are no air pockets, then firm with the flat of your hand rather than treading it hard. Compacting heavy soil around the root ball is the fastest route to a waterlogged crown.
- Water once, thoroughly Give about a gallon (4 to 5 liters) slowly at the base so the water soaks the original root ball and the ground around it. This settles the soil against the roots far more effectively than firming with your feet does.
- Pinch the growing tips once new growth starts Two weeks after planting, once the plant is clearly growing away, take about an inch (2.5 cm) off each shoot tip. This forces branching from low down and gives a dense plant with many more flower heads instead of a few long sprawling stems.
Spacing and containers
In a warm climate where lantana behaves as a permanent shrub, allow three to four feet (90 to 120 cm) between plants, because a well-grown one spreads at least that far and the spreading, low-growing forms go wider still. Where winter kills it and you are treating it as a summer bedding plant, eighteen inches to two feet (45 to 60 cm) is enough for one season's growth.
For containers, one plant to a pot at least twelve inches (30 cm) across gives room for a season of growth without the mix staying wet in the middle. Use a free-draining mix with about a quarter by volume of grit or perlite and no extra fertilizer. A large pot filled with rich moisture-retentive compost produces the same overfed, under-flowering plant that rich garden soil does.
In mixed containers, keep lantana with other plants that want it hot and dry. Pairing it with something that needs daily watering guarantees that one of the two will be unhappy, and it will be the lantana.
What to write down at planting time
Record the date you planted, the exact position, and whether the plant went into ground or a pot. Position is the variable that matters most with this plant, and a note of which corner flowered from early summer to frost and which one struggled is worth more than any general advice about siting.
Note the soil you planted into and whether you added anything. Gardeners who feed lantana usually do it without registering that they have, because the plant went into a bed that was mulched with compost in spring. Writing it down makes the connection to a leafy, flowerless plant obvious the following year.
Finally, log the first date you find a self-sown seedling anywhere in the garden. That date, repeated over two or three seasons, tells you whether your deadheading regime is actually holding and whether a plant in open ground should be moved into a container.