Lantana's:CAN I PROPAGATE THEM?

Hello friends.
This has most certainly been the weirdest gardening season ever in these parts. My poor plant's can't decide if it's late fall and time to wrap things up or if it's spring and they need to revert back to vegatative/spring time growing patterns.
The 1 plant that never let's me down is our Lantana's. I love the different Lantana Camara's that always do so well and always look great. Sadly, I've never learned how to grow them from scratch myself. This is probably due to lack of research but I've never heard of anyone doing it or having luck doing it when tried.
Taking cuttings is too risky since this is 1 plant I just don't have any luck with. I've never seen seeds at the nursery for them and the seeds or fruit that we get off of the one's we have never germinate. I've brought a couple of them indoor's for the winter as they grew in an odd bonsai tree like form that we couldn't bring ourselves to let them die off. That led to problems I don't care to discuss!LOL We can never get them to survive our winters no matter how hard we try. So learning to propagate them is a must unless I want to let my better half "break the bank" buying annuals and I just can't have that. We already have so many tropicals to bring inside over winter that I was forced to buy a 1000 watt Metal halide grow light just to keep them healthy enough to survive indoor's. Well I wasn't forced to buy the light, I do enjoy having plant's blooming indoor's all winter long. Plus I use that area for our "sunshine therapy" when the gray skies of winter seem endless and bum us out.

ANYHOW...Does anyone know how to propagate Lantana's in any form? I don't care if it's from seed or cuttings etc.. Just any means of propagation so we don't have to buy them every spring, they aren't THAT expensive but my wife has decided that we're going to plant A BUNCH of them and probably carpet 1 bed entirely with it. That 1 garden alone...I could see it costing me an easy 100$ for smaller plant's and still having to wait for them to fill in. My wife is the "instant gratification" type and MUST have atleast 1 of our beds looking somewhat finished immediately in early spring. LOL If she sees any "Bald" spots of bare earth, she sees that as area that needs to be filled NOW and not waiting for some plant's to fill in themselves like most of us. I must admit, I like that look too even though I know it means we'll be thinning it all out and transplanting 50% of it 2 months later just to make room for the others to grow.

IF ANYONE HAS INFO they could please share with me on this topic, I would greatly appreciate it. You could save us a lot of money that we don't have and prevent any sticker shock arguments come spring;)LOL.
Thanks in advance! Jeff

Yeah, I want to know also.

Last winter I brought my lantanas into the dark, unheated garage, watered them about once a month. Planted them out this spring and they have thrived. Too large to do that again.

Yeah we had the same problem. That 2nd season, they looked like little trees with brown trunks and all. We would of tried to bring them in for a 3rd season but they looked and acted like they were exhausted when fall came last year. Exhausted is the best description I can come up with. They were just all tired out looking and "done". They began to loose leaves etc...I guess some annuals will do that when you stretch their seasons that long. Who knows?

ok...this was a question of mine also, as I want to start some lantana in my yard...I was sent some seeds, and also there is a plant growing down at the end of our driveway that I would like to add to my yard (the end of the driveway is much to far from the house for me to enjoy it!).

So...I've gone researching and here's what I've found:
This from http://hortchat.com/info/propagating-lantana -
Lantana should be propagated in mid-summer from stem cuttings. Make 3 inch cuttings off non-flowering shoots. Strip off any leaves that come in contact with rooting medium and the soil. Dip the ends in a hormone rooting medium and insert in a moist, well drained, soil made of peat moss and sand or perlite. Cover the container with a clear plastic bag and keep in a spot with bright filtered light. It should root in 2-3 weeks. When you see new growth emerging uncover your container and place it in brighter light and start to lightly fertilize every 2 weeks to promote healthy new growth. When the plants have about 2-3 inches of new growth, pinch the tips to encourage bushy growth. The following spring repot plants in individual pots. Young rooted plants usually bloom more profusely than older plants. Lantana can also be started from seeds sown early in the spring. Seed grown plants may have a variation in color and quality of the original plant.
The above method may be used on many other plants.

Also found this at http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/south/msg0507572231194.html
"I've found this to be an almost fullproof way to root lantana. From between the main stem and the leaves you will find suckers (2 inches) sprouting. Use a very sharp know and carefully remove the sucker WITH a part of the main stem bark. You don't need to cut through, just sort of scrape off a little bark when you remove the sucker. Remove any large leves from teh sucker. Plant immediately in a small pot of sand, Keep moist, not wet. Use rooting powder if you wish. Place in the shade. In about 3 weeks you will have enough roots to tranplant."

Am now looking for more info on germinating the seed. Will post that as I find it...

Cool. Keep us posted about germinating the seed... I have lots of them.

lol...all the other articles I'm finding are on how to REMOVE & PREVENT Lantana...poor, misunderstood, beautiful little flower...oh, well, like they say, 'One man's trash is another man's treasure'

The butterflies & I love this plant, and it is welcome to make itself very comfortable in my yard. Obviously the birds like the seeds, too, as that is how it is spread.
hmmmm...maybe we could try feeding the seed to the birds!

Yeah, Beth... I struggle to have some here, and my cousins (who own this house) tell me it's a noxious weed in FL. Go figure, LOL.

Wow...found a great list that has seed germination info, and wonder of wonders, it includes lantana!!

It says to soak for 1 day in 'hand hot water'; the soaking helps to remove chemicals which inhibit germination. After soaking for 24 hours, they should then be planted 1/8" deep in a peaty soil; soil temp should be 70-75 degrees, and germination should take place in 42 - 60 days; DO NOT let the seeds dry out after soaking/before planting. It also states that germination can be slow & irregular for Lantana.

For those of you that might be interested in the extensive info on this list, here's the link: http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm.html

Beth, that info makes me wonder if soaking in a 10% peroxide solution would aid germination?

I was thinking the same thing...definitely worth a try, I'd say...

Thanks for the info Beth. You've saved me a bunch of time.
I'm going to try taking cuttings using their method for taking the cut but I'll use my cloning gel, Oasis cubes, trays with humidity domes. If they have decent luck with plastic bags and sand etc., I should be able to speed things up a bunch and probably increase survival rates per cut. I've gone this route with every other plant and have had awesome luck. As long as I can find the "sucker's" mentioned above and stay away from any of the "woody" growth, I should do well IMO.

I'm deffinately going to use some H2O2(peroxide) in my seed soak too if there is indeed some sort of germination preventative on the seeds. I know my Passiflora's can take anywhere from 1 week to 1 year to germinate and soaking helps speed things up a bunch too. And as hard as it can be to get cuttings of some Passiflora's to take, I'm fairly confident I can pull these babies off too. I'll try to take a look tonight to see if my plants have any suitible branches for cuttings.
Please keep me posted if anyone here tries any of this. I think if we collectively tried and shared notes, we'd be able to figure these guys out.
I sure hope so anyhow!

JLD_II, would you post some fotos of your cuttings setup?

Took some cuttings last fall - just broke off pieces, stripped the leaves and stuck in soil - then bagged them up. Most all of them survived, but did little over the winter (meaning - they just sat there!) But, stuck them in the garden and they took off!! Dug up the whole plant one fall, but fought with bugs all winter. Cuttings worked best for me.

Heya way2dumb! LOL whatta nick! Here is the 1st cutting thread we made. It has pics of a few methods and I think it also contains a link to another page I started about Passiflora cuttings. Take a look and ask away;).
Sorry it took so long for the reply, its been really busy and I haven't been on the pc inna long time. I'll try to watch more. Feel free to email me to remind me about anything I space off again;)
JD


http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/412695/