Low maintenance, drought tolerant Lantana is an excellent choice as a container plant or in your flowerbed or landscape.
Available in both upright and rambling varieties, these easy-care plants produce masses of colorful flowers in shades of white, yellow, orange, red, pink, and purple. Wide varieties have mixed bloom colors.
They are excellent drawing cards for butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators.
Lantana is beautiful on its own and even more so when combined with a wide variety of drought tolerant, heat and light-loving plants.
In this article, we discuss Lantana companion plants. Read on to learn more.
Lantana Varieties Add Color & Drama To Your Xeriscape
There are over 150 varieties of perennial Lantana.
Whether rambling or shrub-like, these hardy, enthusiastic plants provide an abundant number of beautiful, fragrant blooms from early in the spring and into the autumn.
These tropical plants are winter hardy in USDA hardiness zones 8-11, and they can be grown as annuals in the landscape, in containers, or hanging baskets in cooler areas.
Because of their drought tolerant, sun-loving temperament, Lantana is an excellent choice for adding color and an element of lushness to a Xeriscape.
These plants look beautiful alongside succulents and cacti, such as:
Golden Sword Yucca
Golden Sword Yucca evergreen has broad, sharp, sword-like leaves striped in creamy yellow and green.
The plant produces a tall flower spike with fragrant white blooms in the springtime.
The plant grows about 2’ feet high and 2’ feet wide.
The flower spike attains a height of about 4’ feet.
Sedum Autumn Joy
Sedum Autumn Joy is just one of many types of beautiful sedum that will grow happily alongside Lantana.
This succulent has grayish-green, toothed, oval leaves and attains a height of about 3’ feet.
Late in the summer, it produces clusters of dusty pink flowers.
Hen & Chicks
Hen & Chicks is a common name that is applied to a wide variety of rosette-forming Echeveria succulents.
These members of the Crassulaceae family of plants are typically low-growing ground covers that spread enthusiastically by sending forth little plantlets.
Species vary in winter hardiness, but most would make happy companions for Lantana in a xeriscaped setting.
Prickly Pear Cactus
Prickly Pear Cactus is a desert classic. Sporting fleshy, edible paddles, large, colorful flowers, and lots of thorns, this is an architecturally attractive plant that is fortunately carefree once established.
Other good additions to a xeriscaped garden include ornamental grasses, such as:
Pampas Grass
Pampas Grass (Cortaderia selloana) is an extremely dramatic addition to any garden.
It has sturdy, upright foliage and stems topped by large, white, beige, or pink plumes. This ornamental grass can grow to be 12’ feet high.
Fountain Grass
Fountain Grass (Pennisetum Alopecuroides) is a warm-season grass that does well in various settings.
It has deep green foliage and attractive blooming, grain-bearing heads. It can grow to be 4’ feet high.
These attractive grasses (and others) can look lovely as a backdrop to rambling Lantana in a xeriscaped garden setting.
Xeriscaping with Lantana is especially attractive in desert areas such as Arizona and Nevada, where it brings an element of lushness and color to your garden.
It’s just important to remember that Lantana should not be planted closely with other plants
This fast-growing plant likes to spread, even in dry, challenging settings. Even the upright varieties will fill out rapidly and take up space.
Planted too closely with low-growing succulents, Lantana will overshadow and crowd them out.
Lantana Is Also Right At Home In Hot, Non-Desert Settings
Rambling Lantana planted as a ground cover at the base of trees and bushes can help retain moisture in the soil.
In hot, dry southern states, such as New Mexico and Texas, this technique can work very well in a drought-tolerant garden populated with flowering trees and bushes, such as Rose of Sharon, Crepe Myrtle, or fruit trees, such as citrus
Lantana makes a dramatic contrast when planted under dusky green olive trees and a brilliant enhancement surrounding rose bushes of all sorts.
In hot, non-desert settings, a garden bed consisting of Lantana, coupled with:
Purple Coneflower
Purple Coneflower is a beautiful and useful perennial member of the Asteraceae family of plants.
It produces pink/purple, daisy-like blooms throughout the summer and autumn.
It can grow about 4′ feet high, attract pollinators, and be picked and dried to make tea.
Shasta Daisy
Shasta Daisy is the classic white daisy with a bright yellow center. This pretty perennial member of the Asteraceae family of plants can grow to be 3′ feet high.
The large, cheery flowers brighten your garden all summer and into the fall.
Zinnias
Zinnias are another garden classic native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, and South America.
Like Coneflowers and Daisies, they belong to the Asteraceae family of plants, are easy to care and come in a wide variety of sizes, bloom types, and colors.
Bearded Iris
Bearded Iris is available in a wide variety of colors. These lush, elegant, easy-care perennial bulbs, coupled with vigorously growing and blooming Lantana, can help you create a vibrant and full-color palette with little care.
Dusty Miller
Dusty Miller is a Mediterranean native with big, fuzzy, serrated, dusty silver leaves.
Planted as a ground cover around upright Lantana, it is stunning.
Lamb’s Ear
Lamb’s Ear is similar to Dusty Miller in many ways, but its fuzzy, silver-gray leaves are oval and produce small lavender blooms throughout the summer.
These plants can be very attractive and carefree.
Attract Pollinators With A Colorful Flower Collection
Both upright and rambling Lantana make ideal additions to your butterfly and pollinator garden.
Choose a location that provides full sun and create a blooming butterfly paradise made up of Lantana combined with:
- Black-Eyed Susan is easy to care for, native perennial Aster with pretty, yellow, daisy-like flowers and black centers.
- Common Milkweed grows wild throughout much of the United States and Canada. This tall, pretty plant has pom-poms of very fragrant pink blooms.
- Butterfly Weed is a type of milkweed (Asclepius) that dazzles with clusters of tiny, bright orange blooms.
- Columbine is a lovely plant with blooms that specifically evolved to encourage pollinators. Flower colors vary from white to pink to purple. All are lovely and hardy.
- Scarlet Bee Balm is a fragrant member of the mint family native to the northeastern United States, Washington state, and Oregon. This useful herb is irresistible to pollinators and can be used to make a very flavorful tea. The plants’ bright red blooms appear throughout the summer months.
- Cosmos is a tall, pretty member of the Asteraceae family of plants. Easy to grow and self-seeding, it produces daisy-like blooms in shades of white, pink, and yellow throughout the summer months.
- Pentas stand up especially well to hot, humid weather. This vigorous ground cover produces clusters of pink, tubular blooms that are especially attractive to pollinators.
- Salvia or Sage is a relative of the mint family. This useful herb comes in many different sizes, colors, and shapes, and all of them will thrive in the conditions needed by Lantana.
Lantana Brings Color And Versatility To Any Setting
It’s easy to see that rugged, carefree, colorful Lantana is the perfect choice for combining a wide variety of heat and sun-loving annual and perennial plants.
Follow the tips presented here to create a full and vibrant garden that will attract pollinators and delight the senses for years to come.
