lovely lantana

Gardening at our home at the beach in the coastal Carolinas was difficult, at best.  I had to find plants, flowers and bushes that could thrive in sandy soil and were drought tolerant.  Luckily for me, our front yard was always overflowing with bright gold, orange, pink and red flowers from spring until fall every year, thanks to lantana. 

Depending on where you live, lantana can be a perennial or an annual.  It never got too cold in the winters, so every fall, if I cut them back and protected the stubs with mulch, the following spring, they would burst through the soil in all their glory.  I don’t know if that will work everywhere, but they are so easy to grow-they don’t require watering, spraying or fertilizing-it’s worth a shot.  Best of all, you can find them at Home Depot or Lowe’s for next to nothing.  The gold lantana are ground creepers, whereas the orange and red grow in mounds up to six feet tall! 

Here they are in our last home; some wayward purple verbena found its way in there somehow:

About a month ago, I bought a bunch of pint-sized lantana for $2.50 each at Lowe’s.  They’ve quadrupled in size and are filling in between my ligustrum perfectly:

If you’re looking for an inexpensive, environmentally-responsible way to boost your curb appeal, lantana is the way to go!