For the past three weeks I've been on the lookout for my favorite lantana. I've been stopping at every garden center and nursery I pass trying to find it. Yesterday I stopped at five places and had no luck at all. Today I was in a different part of town and checked one of the garden centers and they had just received a shipment of it! I was so happy to finally have my lantana, actually I was quite giddy about it even making up a stupid little song in the car, (thankfully no one was with me so I could be silly without embarrassing myself)! It obviously doesn't take much to make me happy! Lantana is one of my must have plants for my butterfly garden. Here is one reason why:
The hummingbird, (Clearwing), moths love them, as do the butterflies and the hummingbirds.
I wish they were as common here as they are in the south or I wish I could grow them myself so I didn't have to search high and low for them each spring.
I also did something today that I hate to do and that is take advantage of plant warranties. I feel so silly taking dead plants back to the store. I had two Knock Out roses, (out of seven), that didn't make it and two Dwarf Alberta spruces- that is about $40.00 worth of plants, so I felt like I just had to. Last year I had two Alberta spruces that died and I didn't return them I just replaced them making sure to keep the receipts in case it happened again. It did. I've planted four others that have done well, I'm not sure why these keep dying. I'm not replacing them this time, I'll use the credit for something else. I did replace the Knock Out rose, but I just bought one large healthier one rather than two smaller ones that didn't look very good to me.
I got the five lantanas planted this evening, it was still too wet to plant the rose, hopefully I can do that tomorrow.
Edited to say: These are archive pictures from the lantana that was in my garden last year. The lantana that I selected yesterday only had buds and no blooms yet, so I didn't take a picture of it. Sorry for the confusion.