Beginner Gardening: Lantana acting strange!, 0 by mgentles

mgentles wrote:
Thanks for the posts. The plants, as you say, are healthy and thriving...just weird. I didn't mention that (not realizing these were subtropicals) I planted them on a morning that saw a freeze the same night. It was late March and even frost is unusual here at that time. It was unexpected to say the least. Anyway, every leaf turned black eventually and they had to start over from scratch. It took a good month or six weeks for them to come completely back. The first blooms didn't seem to have this problem. It started a little later. Just to clear matters up, they are planted in full sun, and I do mean full. We had a great spring with lots of rain, but are now back to temperatures pushing 100 (with humidity that makes it feel like 110 to humans). At first I watered only twice a week when the rain stopped, but now it's almost daily and I fertilize lightly about every ten days. I've already pruned them back once because they were outgrowing the bed they're in. But that was after the oddity was noticeable. I'm thinking they'll be moved this fall to a more sheltered spot with enough space to run rampant. I really need to prune them back again already! I'm posting a couple of pictures just to give more perspective of the conditions. These were taken after pruning. They are now pretty much touching one another in the bed that has two. And I never expected the Purple Verbena (one plant) to take over to the extent it has, but that's another post entirely!