Lantana

Very rewarding in a sunny position and will continue flowering well into late autumn. These are now about 3 years old and I prune back in the winter (not hardy)







The third one I grew from seed collected in Egypt

Dave

 

Pleased they are doing well with you Dave. We dug our hedge up of various colours this year as it is a nightmare here (the red/orange is actually classified as an 'invasive' weed here now). It had to be trimmed back every week by about a 50cm so as not to take over the dining patio and I became quite allergic to it so it had to go .. now have a lovely little 'Med border' in it's place. It's a shame as it attracted lots of butterflies and bees but we have many other things that do so also. :yess:

 

Hi Vicky
Yes the hedge in Egypt hotel was huge ,no chance of that here but they are enjoying the recent sunshine here ..I also have a bright red one and a yellow but they are not in flower yet...They seem to overwinter better in the greenhouse now they are older ..

Dave

 

Hi Dave. My hedge was a mixture of your Egypt one (which often had pure white flowers on it) and the bright yellow. I love the combo on the middle picture. I do have a red/yellow/orange one in a pot as t'other half likes the colour and I am standardising it.

Sweet memories ...

 

Davy - lovely to see your pictures. I was looking at one only a few days ago - but in the past I had assumed that they needed a lot of heat in the summer to flower. When you overwinter them - would that be an unheated or a frost free greenhouse?

 

Hi Peter ,
I have them in a heated greenhouse ,but as I said they seem to winter better now they have become older and woody..Worth a try ..

Hi Vicky , wouldn't mine a couple of those butterflies on my Lantana
Dave

 

Hi Davygfushia

I have a lantana which I picked up in B & Q a few weeks ago. I have always admired them when I travel on holiday but didn't dream of growing it here. I don't have a heated greenhouse so how do you suggest I overwinter it. Could I bring it into the house or take cuttings and grow them in the house

 

Just you could prune it back and keep indoors heated ,you may need to keep it trimmed if you have it in a lot of heat .Cuttings could be rooted end of aug /early sept and overwintered indoors . These would need heat and then pot up in the spring .
Possibly a lot of effort but worth a try if you really like them ..
Dave

 

Davy - I just crossed with you.

Sally - I will leave Davy Fuchsia to give you the definitive answer on Lantana, which he knows about.

But, in principle, you can overwinter virtually anything inside the house, if you have the space.

The picture above shows some of the plants I overwintered last winter in my hall.

However there is a general principle working here. Heat, light, and water need to be kept in balance. If you have a warm house many plants will try to keep growing. But the light levels inside the house will may be so low that the plant will be unhappy and become very leggy. You can either keep a plant very warm, in which case it will want to keep growing. So you must give it plenty of light and some water. This is why I rigged up some grow lights in the picture above, so that the plants could continue to grow and they therefore needed watering. But you don't need to do that. The simplest way is to put it in a cool place where it can go dormant or semi dormant and stop growing. If it's not growing it doesn't need much light and it won't want (ie be able to use) much water - so generally you keep these plants on the dry side.

 

I used to overwinter a couple of old woody plants in an unheated garage.

The trick is to dry them right off so they drop their leaves, but give just enough moisture to keep the roots and wood alive

 

Yes I agree Pete the older woody plants are easyier to keep ..
I try to get a lot of my plants in for the winter by end of Oct. clean and tidy them up .Then ease the water to get them on the dry side before winter hits , I then go through them every few weeks tidying old leaves etc .Then slowly bring them back to life in the spring ..I do heat the greenhouses keeping them as low as I dare .Mostly works but still get a few loses ..
Dave