BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Container Gardening Help - Lantana Leaves are Drooping

This is my first time trying to grow lantana. I have it in a hanging pot in the full sun. Its leaves are now drooping! The soil is bone dry too - I worried that I was overwatering it but I don't think that's it.



Any ideas?

Hello Lisa and everyone,

Your Lantana certainly looks unhappy and I can add some commentary which may help sort it out though for reasons you will read about, I have mixed feelings about this particular plant.

In South Africa it has been declared a Category 1 invader plant which means that it must be removed from the garden immediately and destroyed. I think it is such a pretty and useful plant but it is a water guzzler and can if given a chance just take over in the garden; though is a container some measure of control is possible from its wide spreading roots.

Now when I discussed this last with my nurseryman Mike, he said there are some cultivars which are still sold in nurseries here (but these are non-seeding and sterile cultivars) and he recommended just leaving it off a shopping list to be safe. I thought this was such a pity because it is very pretty, colourful, invites bees butterflies and hummingbirds into the garden and is a practical bushy plant good with cascading down steep slopes and helping stabilising ground and with soil erosion. All of that having been said though, the berries can be poisonous, the leaves definitely are and there has been stock loss reported here in SA (not sure about USA).

I was a sad gardener who removed a lot of it from my back garden and must say I really miss the fab show it gave. I have replaced it with Bougainvillea which will hopefully give as good a show one day. I still see a lot of Lantana around here in Johannesburg, so not all have removed it from their gardens. Perhaps I will sneak some back?

Lantana needs full sun, acid-ish soil, warm soil, can put up with salty soils so near the seaside it does well. I used to go to a seaside hotel called the Oyster Box for annual hols where they had masses and masses of yellow Lantana cascading in bursts of colour and beauty. I haven�t been there for many years now, I wonder if they have heeded the injunction to remove it from their gardens?

Like most plants it needs good drainage but in general will die in cold wind or even a smidgeon of frost, hates the cold. When they are baby plants keep them moist and give them a thorough good soaking weekly. They are drought/dry condition tolerant but will not grow if they dry out completely. They are another plant that hates wet feet but the roots must get water.

Now to your picture. You say the soil is very dry (yet see the leaves while wilted are still green). This says that maybe the watering was too surface and while it looked like you had watered or they were wet from rain say, the roots never got access to the water. I would put the pot in a bucket of water, let all the bubbles happen, leave it there for 15 minutes or so then hang it up again. I would also prune it back so the fronds are level with the pot bottom and keep pinching back to strengthen the stems for about a month then just let it grow willy nilly; your container will contain it well enough. I would also give it a liquid fertiliser once a month. But that is what I would do. I am not sure you will read that anywhere! I would also put it in a larger hanging pot (maybe a basket type lined with coir or moss as an alternative) or, actually I would just plant it out in the garden, let it run under control � if that makes sense and it suit your conditions.

Must have sun. If no or too few blooms, stop feeding. Do not over water. Play Beethoven�s 5th symphony in full at close quarters and see what happens! Seriously!

Cheers

Dear Lestie -

Thank you for your amazingly detailed response. I appreciate it greatly.

It is so interesting to think that in places it is a banned plant. It is so lovely! The "invaders" we have in the US are usually just vines.

We had a serious set of storms here recently so it was absolutely deluged. So I would guess the last thing it was was dry during that time period. Then I kept watering it daily after that. I think that might be what did it in. I'm nervous about the idea of watering it even more now.

We let it dry out and then Bob just gave it a small watering today. It *seems* to be better. I think we'll watch it until tomorrow and see what it looks like then.

We don't want to plant it - we're in Massachusetts. It's going to snow here in November So this is only going to survive until the fall outside. Then I'm hoping to bring it inside.

Hi Lisa. I had lantana a few years ago and it was beautiful but it was planted in the ground mixed in with vinca. Talk about an invader, vinca is it.

Hi Lisa,
I know about Lantana because it was a favourite flower with us kids in our gardens because the fairies liked them too, it was a fairy hydrangea and many a fairy was seen frolicking I tell you. We also used it in our miniature gardens we entered into the flower shows we had in our small farming community north of Harare in Zimbabwe or when we made gardens out of the bakelite long-playing records.

They are very hardy plants and almost difficult to kill off. If you do not see continued improvement within the next few days, the rain you talk about may have damaged the roots so a rootprune would not go amiss, especially if you have pruned the top. Pruning the top gives the plant less to worry about while it sorts itself out. From the roots only remove mushy parts if they are there, don't cut for cuttings sake.

Is the one you bought nicknamed 'bacon and eggs?' Looks like it, I love their everyday names too.

I don't talk snow at the moment or yet as far as languages and zones go so will watch for that in my future advice and posts ... thanks for that too.

Cheers

Hi Lisa,
How is your Lantana? Better or still an ailing Knight at arms?
Cheers