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Monday - August 16, 2010

From: Wyoming, MI
Region: Midwest
Topic: Trees
Title: Lantana trees in Wyoming MI
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

We love lantana with its multicolored flowers. This weekend we visited Michigan State University and saw "lantana trees".They were amazing!! Have these trees been grown from the annual plant we have, or is there actually a lantana tree. These would not survive a Michigan winter would they?

ANSWER:

We found no members of the lantana genus native to Michigan, which is why it is an annual there. Here is a picture we found when we Googled "Lantana Tree". This is probably a cultivar or selection of the native Lantana urticoides (West Indian shrubverbena) which has been pruned and trained, in greenhouses, up into a tree form. There are many hybridized types of lantana and some non-native, although this one is native to North America. All of them, however, are tropical to sub-tropical in nature. In Texas, in all but the southern part of the state, its branches will die back in the winter and emerge again in the spring.

Plants like that, in a public garden, are usually put out in the garden when they are at their best. At the end of the season, when it begins to turn cold, they will be removed, perhaps have cuttings taken from them for the next year. Lantanas need a lot of sun, and it's doubtful they can survive indoors, even in a greenhouse, after the first season, especially in Michigan. All of the native lantanas in our Native Plant Database are native to the South and Southwest.

From the Image Gallery

Texas lantana
Lantana urticoides