Lantana is a highly favored garden plant, prized for producing vibrant, multi-colored flower clusters throughout the warm season. These heat-tolerant shrubs or groundcovers offer a consistent burst of color, attracting pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds. To ensure a continuous display of blooms from spring until frost, routine maintenance is necessary. Removing faded blooms keeps the plant focused on producing new floral growth.
Why Deadhead Lantana
Removing spent flowers redirects the plant’s energy away from reproduction and into vegetative growth, leading to more blooms. If developing seed heads are left on the stem, the plant signals that its reproductive cycle is completing, causing it to slow or halt new flower production.
Deadheading prevents the formation of the small, berry-like fruits that contain the seeds. This energy conservation results in a greater number of flower buds developing, leading to a continuous and abundant floral display. Removing the faded blooms also serves the aesthetic function of keeping the plant tidy, as the brown or black debris looks scraggly against the fresh foliage.
Step-by-Step Deadheading Technique
Begin by identifying spent flower clusters, which appear faded, dry, or may have started forming small, green or black seed heads. Although some modern lantana cultivars are sterile, most varieties benefit from deadheading. You can use clean, sharp bypass snips or simply pinch off the faded material with your fingers.
To make the cut, follow the stem of the spent cluster down to the nearest healthy set of leaves or a small, dormant bud. Make your cut just above this node. This is the point where the plant will activate new growth, resulting in either a new stem or a new flower cluster.
Inspect the lantana regularly, ideally once a week, for quick removal before the plant expends energy on seed development. Note that the leaves and stems of lantana can cause minor skin irritation in some individuals. Wearing gardening gloves during this task is a recommended precaution.
When to Prune Versus Deadhead
Deadheading and pruning are distinct maintenance practices addressing different aspects of the plant’s growth. Deadheading is a light, frequent task focused solely on removing faded flower heads during the active growing season. This technique encourages more blooms but does not change the overall size or shape of the plant.
Pruning involves more severe cuts into the woody or main stems to control size, shape, or rejuvenate older growth. This is done much less frequently, typically in early spring before new growth begins or in late winter. When pruning, a gardener may cut the plant back by up to a third of its height to stimulate a flush of new stems and denser growth.