Lantana 'Carlos'

A beautiful lantana with a witty name--Carlos Lantana--get it?! Mine just froze to the ground and is coming back. It was a young plant ...Read Moreso hadn't gotten very big. I'll have to see if it takes over like the previous reviewer noted. All lantana smell wonderful, to me.

I have to say I was very relieved to see that this plant was not hardy above zone 10. My son chose one tiny little cell pack, a single ...Read Moreplant, at a nursery, through a "free plant for every student" offer. We planted it near his Mardi Gras rose, since the colors were so complimentary. Despite the information saying it achieves about 18" height maximum, ours grew to 36" easily, and spread about the same width, until it took over nearly half the bed. It was pretty, and bloomed prolifically and constantly through the entire summer, up until frost. It attracted butterflies and bees, which was nice, but we were unable to see the rose or Salmon Star lilies that were behind it. I tried several times to cut it down to size, and it just became more well-branched and happier than ever. When I finally tried to dig it out in the fall, the roots were a good 4" diameter, and I gave up on getting them all after I dug down a good 2 feet. I finally cut them off and painted the cut edges with shrub killer, due to my fear that it would survive the winter and come back to take over the entire flower bed. I also cut off any seed heads that I found before they could drop their seed, but considering that it had literally hundreds of blooms, I am sure I missed some. The plant had a strong minty smell, and as it matured, the stems became very prickly and caused skin irritation whenever I brushed against them while weeding.

My son loved his flower, but I am sorry to say it behaved as a total bully, and won't be welcome in my garden again.