While taking a walk, I found this plant in a ditch back in October. It looked like someone had just dumped it out. I took it home and potted it. Now it's in bloom. The small 4 petaled flowers grow in roundish clumps and are the color of cheese doodles. The leaves resemble the nettle. Any ideas?
Don't, repeat DO NOT plant it outdoors without containing it really really well. Lantanas are invasive weeds outside of Ecuador.
All I will say is that I've seen it come back the next season from fragmentary root scraps in Northern Alberta.
Yeah I've heard likewise about Lantana. There's no chance I'd have one but apparently sever frosts will contain the plant. They either totally die off or reshoot but do not take over in climates such as ours where the winters are not as severe. When I think of the problems we have with the likes of Lanata camara, even dwarf varities like L. montevidensis are no longer sold.
I have a yellow one that is like a bush. It looks like a lantana and was labled as such. It is perfectly behaved in our cool to hot climate. However the purple one that clambers around is a total menace and yes I think is banned here too. Although I have seen it in round abouts as street planting. "Botanica calls lantana the "Jekyll and Hyde of plants" because it's reviled in warmer, wetter parts of world, where it invades pastures and forests and is poisonous to stock, but in cool, temperate parts of the world it forms quite an attractive shrub." http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1885784.htm http://www.weeds.org.au/docs/Lantana_Profile.pdf
Lantana is a tropical American genus. Growing back from roots in Alberta unexpected. A mild winter? Heavily mulched bed?
-40 C was the coldest night that year, and there wasn't more than 1/2" of mulch. Maybe I had an unusual experience with it. I know it tends to take over down here, but I'd expect that since there's no winter and it never freezes.
