Plant Lantana in your garden now.
And butterflies and hummingbirds will come.

lantana single plant

I recently announced (again) to husband Don that I wanted to copy the butterfly garden we saw in Memphis. I have raised the suggestion for 3 years since our visit to the Memphis Botanical Garden where we enjoyed their butterfly and hummingbird garden. Maybe his retirement late last year reduced his resistance. This project illustrates how we think differently. I immediately think about the flowers and especially lantana’s propensity to attract butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees. Don immediately thinks about the “engineering” aspects: how to remove the deep fescue, how to get appropriate irrigation to the new plants, and in this case how to reroute the lawn sprinkler heads. After many hours over several days working to make this new garden for us, he too loves the flowers and flying wildlife.

The garden is 2 foot wide, bordering our semicircular flagstone patio. The new garden runs about 50 linear feet around the semicircle, punctuated only by a stone walkway through the grass. Don used a trenching shovel to “scoop” the fescue off at the bottom of their root structure. Next the addition of the bender board, some soil amendment, and some tilling. Here’s an aerial shot of the semi-circular bed around the patio.

Next the 5 existing lawn sprinkler risers were dug up and moved. Don had the benefit of having installed the original sprinklers, which made moving them 2 feet to the edge of the new garden easier. Last was accessing some of the existing irrigation system to add Netafim in-line drip lines to the lantana bed. Then the planting. 24 plants in all.

The plants are doing well in their new home.

You can buy Lantana at your local nursery and just find a sunny, open area in your garden and add some lantana, perhaps just in a pot? You will be rewarded with a beautiful display of blooms that you will like, and the butterflies and hummingbirds will like. Bees too!

One word of caution. The lantana plant leaves are a skin irritant and the berries are toxic to animals and humans.

I am so excited about my new butterfly and hummingbird garden. It’s barely a week old and already attracting hummingbirds. We’re hoping to see the beautiful orange and black fritillary moth on it soon.