I’m always looking for drought-resistant native plants for my yard, as I gradually xeriscape both the front and back sections. If the plants can be had for free, so much the better. Texas Lantana (Lantana horrida) produces red, orange, and yellow flowers, and flourishes in a variety of soil conditions. It’s native to South Texas and the Edwards Plateau, and blooms almost year round in the Hill Country climate. So when my friends asked me whether I wanted a largish lantana that had to be removed from the round pen, of course I agreed to dig it up and take it home for my yard. Lantana leaves are poisonous to grazing livestock, though I’ve never known any cattle, sheep, horses, or goats to try to eat it; the green berries are also poisonous to humans, and therefore of concern to parents of small children.
Lantana horrida, languishing somewhat after a one-hour ride in my truck
The uprooted lantana is currently recovering in an old feed bucket filled with sandy soil and water. I’ll transplant it to my dry streambed this evening; we got a few thundershowers this morning, so hopefully digging a hole for the lantana will be a little easier than usual. If it survives, the lantana will add more orange-red color to my xeriscape scheme, and attract butterflies as well. Texas Lantana is in the vervain family, Verbenaceae, along with some other lovely native shrubs, such as Prairie Verbena, Whitebrush, and Texas Vervain.
I had some curious equine onlookers supervising my excavations at the ranch this morning:
Is it crunchable, precioussss?
I’m keeping an eye on you, Hooman
Good luck with that, Kristi! Right now at the Jardin Des Girrafes we’re doing some landscaping, as yours, of a very specific kind: to create a garden that’ll look good (not a recreation of Flanders c. 1916) despite year round dog chickens and Beelzebun Demon Bunny of DOOM. Somehow, though, ‘xeriscape’ won’t be a feature. I think I’ll blog about this In Another Place and link back here…
@ Henry: This may be yet another example of it’s not easy being green. At the rate I’m going, it will take me years to xeriscape my yard, unless I pay a professional landscaper to do it for me. Because of the drought, we’re currently under Stage 1 water restrictions, and the impetus to xeriscape strengthens. I’m going to have to purchase some native grasses for the small hill beyond my dry streambed, and make sure to leave the “bunny-dustbath” site intact (my dog has vain hopes of actually catching a bunny in flagrante dustbatho).
BTW, the two horses in the photos belong to my friends, who own the ranch. My horses are in a paddock distant from the excavation site (but on the same ranch, which is 70+ acres). The two fillies in the photos live in a very large pasture with their sisters and a broodmare; all are huge, nosy warmbloods. I wanted to collect some rocks from their pasture for my landscaping projects, and I had to shut them in a smaller paddock while I gathered rocks. Otherwise they would knock me over with their curiosity and friendliness. Which they did anyway, when I re-opened the gate to let them back into the pasture.