Lantana, Suppliers of Luck

This is possibly the best photo I've managed to take of lantana yet.

Morning light seems to be the most forgiving of reds and oranges. When I zoomed in and cropped for this pic, the flowers seemed to glitter like gems.

Lantana is a deciduous shrub here in California, blooming from April to October. Mine are beginning to set berries (inedible) already in September. By Thanksgiving, the berries will be a metallic blue in color. The leaves have a minty kind of scent (indeed the stems of new growth are square, like mints) -- some people like the scent, others hate it.

Lantana needs little or no irrigation once established. This bush has no direct water except for rain in the winter. Lantanas can be trimmed like a hedge, or pruned carefully into a little ornamental tree, and they come in varied colors from white to lavender. This variety is called "Radiation."

Over Thanksgiving vacation, we cut the lantana back to stumpy main stems. They look like dead wood until March, when tiny leaves suddenly sprout. They turn into monsters in no time; I plant tomato plants between my lantanas and have to take care that the lantanas don't climb all over the tomatoes. Something about lantanas keeps weeds from growing under them; that goes for tomatoes as well as weeds.

Sometimes they will reproduce from seed, and what results is anyone's guess in terms of color.

There, that's the technical. I put two of these lovelies in beside the driveway, and enjoy their color all summer long ... and when we're in need of luck, we gently strip a handful of the red blossoms and toss them in the air. We always smile when we do that, and maybe that's luck enough.

Red for luck, lantana for me.