Lantanna is a perennial grown as a annual in most areas.
Soak seed overnight in water then lightly cover the seed. soil temp 70-75FV & takes 40-60 days to germinate & then 12 weeks to be large enough to set out (green).

mine comes back every year; a friend gave me seed and they came up fine. i planted them in the spring.

they are easily grown from seed. the birds drop in my yard quite often and they grow really quick especially if they get alot of water. they are however very drought tolerant but grow slower with less water. I have a purple trailing one in a raised bed by the pool and I have to keep trimming it because it has a bubbler next to the plant. I also bought a new variety, it is a clear yellow with varigated leaves and have gotten huge in just 3 months since I bought them. The purple one does not set seed and the yellow I don't know yet. I do have a few seeds to both red with yellow center and pink/yellow and cream center. both are bushes and can be trained as mini trees as I did mine. If interested just e-mail me for addy and send sase. thanks flora

Glad to find this thread!

In my zone, it's annual. Period. It also doesn't seem to reseed!

I absolutely love Lantana, though. Last year I collected the seeds, but couldn't get anything to sprout and live.

Has anyone had any luck just sticking them in the ground up here?
How 'bout the cold? Should I pick them, bring them in and put them out in the spring, or just let them fall where they will and hope for next year?

I had that gorgeous purple trailing lantana, too, but it didn't seed. I was hoping! :)

Any suggestions are welcome!
Thanks,
Christine

Christine, I use to have quite a few of the purple trailing but got rid of most of them because I couldn't keep up with them. They were laways sprawling on to the street. The more I cut the more they grew, almost seemed as if overnight. I have only one left. In all the time I had them I never saw one seed. The red and the pink make way to many seeds. Now I have a new color, lemon yellow with varigated leaves, just gorgeous. Flora

I just found this thread. I sowed some lantana seed I got in a swap 4 days ago and the first seed germinated this morning. I was very shocked to see it germinate so quickly.

Penny

So, I gather from reading, lantana will sprout from seed, and seems to grow fast, so is it safe to say that it will be a good ground cover?? Or should I look for something else. I have an area in my yard that's hard to grow much and would like to cover it...I have a small amount of ivey growing now, but very slow. Thanks. P.S. I live in central Alabama.

I planted many lantana seeds in flats under grow lights and only had one seedling germinate. Personally, I think this plant is difficult to grow from seed in my zone 5 area.

Chervil2

I lOVE lantana and would love to try to start it from seed...

A few questions though...

1. Where can I buy the seeds? I really need this information!!!

2. Can they be winter sown in Connecticut?

Chervil2 - I have been sowing a ton of coffee filter / baggies this year and almost gave up on some of the seeds. They have been in the baggies for months and are now finally starting (datura, which went nuts reseeding in my garden in Indiana... took months to start here) (should have been winter sown I wonder)... I changed the coffee filter every once and a while but I can't give up unless they mold then there is nothing to do...

I've just collected some Lantana seeds and was looking for info on how to germinate them. I found the following in a scientific paper from Australia. It seems to confirm the experiences of members of this and other GW forums, that germination tends to be low, but can be improved by removing the pulp from the berries and providing sufficient light and heat (as would be likely in Texas as opposed to Massachusetts or Michigan):

"Lantana seeds need high light conditions for germination and early growth (Gentle and Duggin 1997b; Duggin and Gentle 1998, in Day et al. 2003), and seedlings are unlikely to survive beneath parent bushes. The germination rate of lantana is low under both laboratory and field conditions, with estimates of 4Â20% (Graaff 1987) and 44.5% (Duggin and Gentle 1998, in Day et al. 2003). Germination rates increased from ten per cent to 46 per cent when the fleshy pulp was manually removed from the seed. This higher germination rate is comparable to that obtained from seeds collected from the faeces of wild birds. Seeds germinate at any time of the year given sufficient soil moisture, with most seed germinating after the first summer storms in northern Australia (Parsons and Cuthbertson 2001, in Day et al. 2003).
This species has been nominated as among 100 of the "World's Worst" invaders."

Here is a link that might be useful: Global Invasive Species Database: Lantana camara

Here in Ca, lantana stays nice all year round. I have had one in the front yard for almost 10 years. I sure wish I could take it with me to my new home, but the buyer wants it. I will try to take a cutting.

Lantana just makes it through most of our winters. In the fall you can take cuttings and they start easily in the house or greenhouse. When the spring weather allows they can be planted in the garden and will be the exact duplicate of last years in the garden no matter where you live. Al

I am still waiting for my Lantana seeds to germinate. I've tried them both in peat blocks under light and in a hydroponic setting and they don't seem to be willing to wake.

Here in south Louisiana, Lantana grows quite easily from cuttings, so I wouldn't bother with seeds. They sometimes die back in the winter if we get a freeze, but are back up in the spring. Ruth

Just adding to a thread. It was helpful to me so here is my little bit of info.

In St. Louis Lantana dies on me with the cold temps. Last year I took cuttings. Most were six to eight inches long. Used some form of box store rooting hormone and stuck them in water bottles filled with tap water under cheap lighting in my basement.

About half of them rooted.

About half of those died as I tried to move them to pots with soil after a month.

Only one survived the move to outdoors but boy did it thrive.

Being a cutting it was consistent with the parent.

Thank you all for the information. By using my own rooted cutting I "wasted" tons of my time but also got a very large plant because I was able to start it outdoors in May as opposed to July when the box stores seem to sell them.

I had some plants go to seed one year but the seedlings were disappointing. They did not bloom and had stickers.

I love lantana for a sunburned west side planter that the squirrels play in and break stems and kill more fragile plants.
I was going to try collecting seeds, etc., but after reading your experiences, I will stick to my own method for saving time, energy and a bit of money. Toward spring's end, I bought two approx. 10-12" hanging pots on sale at the greenhouse. They were planted full with a mix of lantana colors that like: yellow, pink, orange, red bi and single colors. I took it home, broke it apart, put some long acting fert. in the soil below the small plants with good roots. They filled my west side 4' planter where nothing does well and are now overflowing. The squirrels are not interested in fighting in a llantana forest, like they seem to in every other plant I have put there and the plants easily tolerate the strong sun. They are beautiful as long as their thirst is quenched every other day. Who could ask for more? The perfect plant for a most troublesome spot.