Lantana is one of the most vivid, tenacious, and ecologically complex flowering plants in horticulture — a genus of tropical and subtropical shrubs whose extraordinary flower displays, exceptional heat tolerance, and remarkable wildlife value have made them among the most widely grown ornamental plants in warm-climate gardens worldwide. From the compact, mounding varieties used in summer bedding schemes to the sprawling, ground-covering forms that tumble over walls and banks, lantanas offer a range of garden applications that few other warm-season flowering shrubs can match.
The flowers of lantana are among the most unusual and visually dynamic in the plant world. Each flower head is composed of dozens of tiny, individual florets packed into a rounded or flat-topped cluster — and here is the remarkable part — the individual florets change color as they age, creating flower heads that display multiple colors simultaneously. A single cluster might show yellow and orange florets at the center, transitioning to pink and red at the outer edge, creating a naturally occurring multicolor effect that no plant breeder could improve upon. This color-changing quality makes lantana one of the most visually complex flowering plants available to the gardener.
The global popularity of lantana is reflected in impressive commercial statistics. Lantana is estimated to be among the top fifteen best-selling annual and tender perennial plants in the United States, with retail sales exceeding $150 million annually. In the southern United States, Australia, and the Mediterranean, where lantana grows as a permanent perennial shrub, it has become one of the most important and widely planted landscape plants for hot, dry, exposed situations where many other flowering shrubs would struggle to survive.
However, lantana’s relationship with its growing environment is not without complexity. In tropical and subtropical regions where it has naturalized beyond its intended growing areas — including Australia, South Africa, India, Hawaii, and parts of the Caribbean — lantana has become one of the world’s most problematic invasive plant species, listed among the top 100 worst invasive species globally. This dual identity — as both a celebrated garden ornamental and a significant ecological threat — makes lantana one of the most complex and contested plants in contemporary horticulture, and the development of sterile, non-seeding cultivars has been one of the most important priorities in lantana breeding programs over the past two decades.
Lantana is a moderately difficult plant to grow and manage but it is noninvasive and nonaggressive; and can thrive in outdoor gardens and containers or as an indoor plant. The two types of lantana commonly grown in cultivated landscapes are Trailing lantana, Mounding lantana. Trailing lantana grows 18 to 24 inches tall with a spread of up to 4 feet. Shrub lantana grows up to 4 feet tall with a spread of 1 to 3 feet. Both types perform best in full sun and need moist, well-drained soil.
Also Read: How to Grow Lantana from Seed
Varieties of Lantana Plants
1. Pineland lantana
Pineland Lantana is a gorgeous South Florida native that attracts butterflies and stays lower than the other native Lantanas. It displays clusters of bright yellow flowers, has a low, trailing habit and flowers all year. Pineland Lantana is also drought tolerant. Lantana’s neat full rounded habit lend it to use as a medium-sized container specimen plant for sunny sites or add it to the garden and landscape for spring to fall color.
Pineland Lantana can be useful in the landscape in mass plantings, in containers or planters, around decks, swimming pools, and other outdoor living areas, in landscape beds or islands, in small groupings or in medians and also in cottage gardens, butterfly gardens or perennial gardens.
2. Lantana camara
Lantana camara is a much-branched, upright (erect), arching or scrambling shrub that usually grows 2-4 m tall and forms dense thickets. It can occasionally grow like a vine (as a scandent shrub) due to its patterns of short branches and if there is support by other vegetation, in which case it can reach up to 15 m in height. The plants produce multicolored clusters of flowers in shades of white, pink, yellow, red and purple on bushy evergreen growth.
Lantana camara occurs along roadsides, in degraded lands, in riparian zones (banks of watercourses), along fence lines and in pastures and parklands, in plantations, forest edges and gaps and is now seen invading native vegetation in woodlands and savannas (notably in protected areas).
3. Dallas Red Lantana
Dallas Red Lantana has long been popular for its profusion of flowers that open a dark orange and fade to a brilliant red. This is certainly one of the best larger growing red flowered Lantana cultivars. It is an excellent choice for attracting butterflies and other pollinators to your garden.
Dallas Red Lantana is widely grown as a flowering accent shrub on slopes, in parkways and as clipped hedges in both residential and commercial landscapes. The grow very quickly and are adapted to many soil types, full sun and watering schedules. While highly drought adapted, some leaves will drop during extreme moisture stress, but they quickly regrow when water becomes available.
4. Pumpkin Patch Lantana
Grandpa’s Pumpkin Patch Lantana produces yellow centered clusters of brilliant pumpkin orange flowers from late spring to frost on this vigorous Lantana that can certainly keep up with New Gold for flowering ability. This Lantana makes the plant appears alive with these fluttering wonders, especially in summer and fall. It is also durable and reliable perennial is moderately drought tolerant, deer resistant, salt-tolerant, and is generally pest free.
Also Read: How to Grow Lantana in Pots & Containers
5. Chapel Hill Yellow Hardy Lantana
Chapel Hill Yellow Lantana is a fast growing perennial plant that matures to an average height of 1 foot to 2 feet and an average width of 3 feet to 4 feet. In the summer and fall Chapel Hill Yellow Lantana produces golden yellow flowers. The foliage is dark green in color and is fragrant.
This variety of lantana attracts butterflies and visual attention and is resistant to deer, drought, insects, diseases and heat. It prefers growing in a location that provides full sun and grows best when planted in loam, clay or silt soil that is well drained or moderately drained.
6. New Gold Lantana
New gold lantana is low mounding evergreen flowering shrub developed through hybridization of Lantana camara and Lantana montevidensis. It grows quickly to 2-3 ft. high, 6 ft. across that becomes covered with round ball-like flower heads that are gold in color for long periods of time in spring and summer. Its deep green leaves are 2-4 in. long and pungent when crushed. Like other lantanas, it can be clipped and shaped to grow as a low hedge or border plant, or be left to provide erosion control on banks and slopes.
7. Purple Trailing Lantana
This low and spreading shrub is one of the most popular low maintenance flowering shrubs planted around walk ways and residential landscapes. It has a dense mat-like habit with tightly knitted stems, growing 12-18 in. high and 5-10 ft. across. Foliage is comprised of dark green leaves, 1-2 in. long that are high pungent when cut; showy flower heads of purple and white occur from summer through fall and intermittently year round.
Flowers appear year-round in frost-free climates, in more temperate regions, it is grown as an annual, flowering from spring to autumn. It may be used as groundcover and has an attractive trailing habit. It may also be grown in containers and suits planting in a cottage garden. When provided with support, it can take a climbing, vine-like habit.
8. Red Spread Lantana
Red Spread Lantana produces clusters flowers that open orange and then darken to deep rich red on a mounding to spreading plant. Lantanas are excellent free flowering perennials that love the heat and the sun. This durable and reliable perennial is moderately drought tolerant, deer resistant, salt tolerant, and is generally pest free.
Red Spread lantana thrives in the well-drained soil of containers and carpets the ground with rich green foliage and an abundance of butterfly-attracting flowers. In areas where it is perennial, it can be invasive when grown as a groundcover. It is also a good choice for beachfront plantings, as they tolerate salt.
9. Silver Mound Lantana
Silver Mound Lantana is a low growing, mounding lantana that produces abundant clusters of creamy white tubular flowers with yellow throats on neat, compact, mounding plants with dark green foliage. It flowers year round in hot climates or from spring to frost when used as an annual in cooler climates.
The flowers are very attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds. This durable and reliable perennial is moderately drought tolerant, deer resistant, salt-tolerant, and is generally pest free. It is also an excellent low maintenance groundcover and great for use in white theme gardens or landscape.
Also Read: How to Grow Lantana in Pots & Containers
10. Spreading Sunset Lantana
Spreading Sunset Lantana is a fast growing, spreading perennial, and treated as an annual in cooler areas. It produces rounded clusters of nectar rich flowers that open yellow and fade through shades of orange to near red creating an overall orange effect. Leaves are 1 inch long, dark green, with coarsely toothed edges. The bright orange yellow blooms appear in domed clusters, covering the plant from summer to frost.
This is a trailing Lantana variety that lends itself to use as a groundcover in the garden or landscape or as a spiller from large containers. The flowers attract a variety of pollinators especially butterflies and bees. Provide a full to mostly sunny position for the best results.
11. Three-Leaf Lantana
Three-leaf lantana forms dense and colorful groundcover, producing dark green, oval, toothed foliage and attractive spherical flowerheads comprised of many funnel-shaped lilac-purple flowers. Flowers appear year-round in frost-free climates, in more temperate regions, it is grown as an annual, flowering from spring to autumn. It may be used as groundcover and has an attractive trailing habit. It may also be grown in containers and suits planting in a cottage garden. When provided with support, it can take a climbing, vine-like habit.
12. White Trailing Lantana
Lantana Montevidensis ‘Trailing White’ is a fast growing annual bedding that matures to an average height of 1 inch to 1 foot and an average width of 1 foot to 2 feet, depending on climate and other environmental factors. It prefers growing in a location that provides full sun and grows best when planted in loam soil that is well drained.
In the spring, summer and fall Trailing White Lantana produces white flowers. The foliage is dark green in color. It attracts butterflies, hummingbirds and visual attention and is resistant to deer, drought, insects, diseases and heat.
13. Belle Starr Gold Lantana
Belle Starr Gold Lantana produces a endless display of deep golden yellow, nectar rich, rounded flower clusters on a vigorous mounding to trailing plant with deep dark green glossy foliage acting as a backdrop. This hardy Lantana attracts loads of butterflies, bees, smaller pollinators, and other garden pollinators from spring to frost. The plant can be used Belle Starr Gold Lantana as filler/spiller for medium to large containers or as a groundcover, covering perennial in the garden or landscape.
Also Read: Types of Pink Lantana Varieties
14. Mango Lantana
Mango Lantana is a sterile dwarf cultivar with a compact, well-branched upright to rounded habit lending it to use near the front of the garden and landscape, in mixed containers gardens, and as specimen container plants. Their large rounded flower clusters open a soft lemony yellow, darken to apricot and coral, and finally fade into shades of pastel orange.
15. Cherry Bandana Lantana
Bandana lantanas have compact mounding habit without the lankiness of traditional lantana. Growing only 20-24″ tall and 24″ wide, the Bandana lantanas maintain a tight and dense mound. It produce large flower clusters that first pop open to a beautiful, eye-catching deep magenta-red, and then mature to shades of juicy apricot and lemony yellow.
16. ‘Miss Huff’ Hardy Lantana
‘Miss Huff’ is a fast growing shrub and perennial plant that matures to an average height of 5 feet to 6 feet and an average width of 8 feet to 10 feet, depending on climate and other environmental factors. It prefers growing in a location that provides full sun and grows best when planted in sand, loam, clay or silt soil that is well drained.
In the summer and fall Miss Huff Hardy Lantana produces yellow, pink and orange flowers. The foliage is medium green in color. It attracts butterflies and hummingbirds and is resistant to deer, drought, insects and diseases.
This variety of Lantana can be useful in the landscape in shrub borders, around decks, swimming pools, and other outdoor living areas or as a focal point and also in rock or xeriscape gardens, cottage gardens, butterfly gardens, hummingbird gardens or perennial gardens.