By Dr. John C. Alleyne, Commercial Horticulture Agent F inding bedding plants that bloom from April through June is easy, but gardeners fancying annual flowers that atually prefer Florida weather in July and August is a bit harder. Lantana is one of those maverick plants that actually does best when it gets so hot and miserable outside that all but the most dedicated gardeners call a two-month hiatus to await more hospitable conditions. New Gold Lantana is a semi-hardy perennial that is best treated as an annual in the garden.
Lantanas bloom in a dense head with individual tubular florets with four or five lobes.
Some lantana selections produce clusters of black berries which are considered poisonous, but New Gold is almost completely fruitless. The poisonous properties are considered of importance to ranchers because, in subtropical areas of Florida, Texas and Hawaii, lantana has escaped into pasture lands. No report of human death has ever been attributed to lantana berries. The genus lantana consists of over 150 species mostly from tropical parts of the Americas from which this species originates. It has long been cultivated as an ornamental, but French breeders at the close of the 19th century developed the modern forms in the color ranges we know today.