Lantana is a popular, heat-tolerant plant known for its vibrant, continuous color, attracting butterflies and hummingbirds. This durable shrub provides a long season of blooms, but managing its vigorous growth is necessary to keep it healthy and floriferous. Pruning encourages strong new growth and prevents the plant from becoming woody or leggy. Knowing the optimal time to prune is the most important factor for maximizing the plant’s shape and flowering display.
The Critical Late Winter Cutback
The most significant annual pruning for established, perennial lantana should be performed in late winter or very early spring. This heavy cutback rejuvenates the plant and stimulates the new stems on which the season’s flowers will bloom. Delaying this structural pruning until the danger of the last hard frost has fully passed is important. Pruning too early encourages tender new shoots that are easily killed by a late-season freeze, potentially damaging the plant.
This pruning involves cutting the entire plant back, often removing between one-half to two-thirds of its size. For many varieties, this means reducing the woody stems to a height of about six to twelve inches from the ground level. Overgrown or woody plants benefit from an even harder cut, as the goal is to remove old material and force a flush of fresh, vigorous growth. This technique ensures a compact, healthy structure and sets the stage for abundant flowering throughout the warmer months.
Growing Season Maintenance Trimming
After the initial spring cutback, the focus shifts to lighter, continuous maintenance trimming throughout the active growing season. This ongoing attention is primarily aimed at encouraging the plant to produce more flowers and maintaining a tidy shape. Lantana blooms on new growth, so consistent trimming prevents the plant from expending energy on seed production instead of new blossoms.
The practice of removing spent flower heads, often called deadheading, is the simplest and most effective way to encourage continuous blooming. Once a flower cluster fades, you can simply snip or pinch it off, which signals the plant to produce another bloom. Additionally, you can perform light shaping by tipping back leggy stems that begin to extend too far from the main body of the plant. Removing the top one to three inches of these stems encourages lateral branching, resulting in a denser, bushier plant with more potential bloom sites.
Determining Your Lantana’s Hardiness
The timing and severity of pruning depend on whether your lantana is treated as a perennial shrub or a tender annual in your climate. Lantana is perennial only in USDA Hardiness Zones 8 through 11, where it survives the winter outdoors. In these warmer regions, the late winter cutback is essential for its long-term health and vigor as an established shrub.
Conversely, gardeners in colder zones grow lantana as an annual, meaning the plant will not survive the winter. For these annual plants, a heavy structural cutback is unnecessary. The primary timing concern in the fall is simply removal and disposal after the first killing frost.
If the plant is grown in a container, it can be overwintered indoors. This requires only a light trim in the fall to manage its size before moving it inside. A heavier cut should then be performed in late winter before it returns outdoors.