Unpopular opinion
I feel like I should get the confessions out of the way early on.
I don't like lantana.
Yes, I know it grows very well in Texas, that it loves our soil, and that it deals with drought. I know that it attracts butterflies, and I appreciate that. I even like that the same cluster of blossoms can be more than one color at a time.
But I don't like lantana.
I know this makes me strange, but hear me out. I hate that it grows huge and ungainly. I like plants with a "more compact habit," as the horticulturists say. I hate that the stems get so woody, that it has to be sheared back or else it'll take over the sidewalk. I hate that it gets so huge.
Texas lantana is called Lantana horrida in Latin. Horrible lantana!
I like civilized flowers, ones that stay more or less in their place. I try to plant natives in my Austin garden because I know all the benefits: they're better suited to our climate and our (lack of) rainfall. They serve as food sources for the native fauna. But I harbor a love for sweet nasturtiums, tidy pansies, and dainty violas. I can't help it.
I like wildflowers, especially the delicate-seeming ones like winecup, which are remarkably resilient even in drought. I love daisies and low-growing miniature zinnias. I lament the fact that so few bulbs grow well in Texas, though I'm so looking forward to seeing the reemergence of the oxblood lilies that MSS of Zanthan Gardens gave me last week.
I like soft stems and delicate blooms and sweet fragrance. I like plants that attract butterflies, as well as bees. I like ladylike flowers, and lantanas are such tomboys. I like suggestions, too.
What flowers would you recommend for my garden?
4 Comments
Leave a comment
Twitter Updates
Other Garden Weblogs and Resources
- The Grackle
- Playing in the Dirt
- Zanthan Gardens
- Transplantable Rose
- Digging
- Suburban Wildlife Garden
- The Great Experiment
- South of the River
- Kiss of Sun
- Sharing Nature's Garden
- Something About Blooming and Butterflies
- Aurora Primavera
- The Gardens of Casa Martin
- Seeds
- Heavy Petal
- This Garden is Illegal
Hi Rachel!
How exciting to find a new Austin Garden Blogger!
You write beautifully, and I'm looking forward to reading your adventures at your new home.
The deer ate many plants at our previous Austin house, but only nipped the lantana so I planted tons of it. By the time we moved here in 2004 I was sick of it - and sick of the smell of it, too. But after a couple of lantana-free years its virtues could no longer be denied...toughness and butterflies count big here. Now I grow some smallish mounding lantanas in yellow, a trailing white kind and one big calico in my borders.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
http://www.annieinaustin.blogspot.com/
I'm not fond of lantana either. I don't like the scent off its leaves. I find it a lot of work to cut back because I use most cuttings for my compost and it mats and doesn't break down easily. And in the last decade my yard has become very shady and so the plants sprawl but don't flower.
I would recommend mistflower (boneset). Pam/Digging gave me a white one but she also has some purple ones. It blooms in the fall and doesn't look like much the rest of the year. But the butterflies seem to love it.
What!? Nobody (Annie or MSS) told me there is a new Austin garden blogger in town! I'm late to the party. ;-) Welcome, Rachel. I look forward to reading about what's going on in your garden. I second MSS's suggestion that you add your blog to the world-map directory at http://blog-directory.gardeningtipsnideas.com/html/add_blog.html when you get a chance. It's also a good resource for finding other blogs by location. (Though Stuart, the directory master, is very slow these days in updated his site.)
As for your lantana dislike, I can understand that. I still have the trailing purple lantana, but I got rid of all the big, native types. They were taking over my small garden. However, one reappeared this summer, planted by a bird, probably.
Do you have sun? If so, you might like little hymenoxys for dainty, yellow flowers and nodding stems. MSS gave me some Englemann's daisy, which might fit the bill also. How about tidy skullcap?
For part shade, have you tried hummingbird-magnet Salvia guaranitica? Or native heartleaf skullcap? How about blue mistflower as a fall butterfly attractor? (I know MSS suggested it, but you might find the white mistflower to be as large, woody, and sprawling as lantana.) Purple or white oxalis? Texas betony?
In southern India where I come from lantana is a wild shrub nobody plants it in their garden. They often grow in empty lots, by the highways. You are right about the smell and hardiness and the butterflies though.