Lantana

Lantana is one of the easiest plants to grow in Central Texas. It's a native, drought tolerant, and appeals to both pollinators (flowers) and birds (berries).

Mockingbirds planted my lantanas. The yard is full of them, many colors: pink/yellow, orange/yellow, yellow. A couple of years after the shrubs began to come up, some mockingbirds nested nearby, and their fledglings regularly visited the yard in groups to eat the berries. (The berries are toxic to mammals, including humans, cats and dogs, however.)

Many sites list the orange/yellow as native, but the pink/yellow are the ones I've seen growing wild in Central Texas since I was a child. Also, I've read recommendations that list lantana as a summer bloomer. The ones in my yard are not so limited. These things would bloom all year round with the right conditions. The only thing that stops them blooming is a drought or a killing freeze.

One year, Central Texas had a fortuitous rain in the middle of the Monarch butterfly migration in October/November. The lantanas in my yard exploded in flowers. It was wonderful to watch the Monarchs stop on their journey and dance around the lantana blossoms.

Since 2021, Central Texas has experienced a killing freeze every winter. My lantanas' roots have survived every freeze so far, and once they come back up in the spring, they bloom whenever there's enough rain. The fact that lantana roots can survive freezing makes it a plant that appears to withstand climate change, unlike some other shrubs, like rosemary.

The dead branches left after a freeze present a choice. I have found that trimming them back makes the plant more vigorous. However, lantana can get very big. So in places where they are too big, like overhanging a path, I leave the deadwood, or some of it, and the plant doesn't expand quite so much. If growing large is not an issue, I chop and drop. No better fertilizer for a plant than its dead leaves and stems, and the plants come back more vigorous than ever.