Lantana, Butterfly and A Damselfly
Lantana with a Cabbage White Butterfly nectaring.
I've lantana plants in my yard/flower gardens about 10 years.
It comes back from the roots every year.
It's just beginning to bloom again.
It's only about 3 feet high at present, but by the end of the summer it will be over 6 feet tall!
I will even cut it back a couple of feet sometime in late August and it will rebloom in September.
If you've read my blog since last summer or anyone else's blog that wants to supply butterflies with nectar, then this is one of the flowers to plant in your garden in the USA.
Lantana with a damselfly visitor!
Have a Blessed Day!
June 4, 2018
All original photos taken by me on my iPhone or Canon PowerShot.
I had no idea Lantana could be a perennial! I've bought and grown it for years but maybe southern Missouri gets too cold in the winter for the roots? The butterflies sure do love it! I didn't know it got so huge either! Ours only ever grow about a foot or so. Thanks so much for sharing!
Well, only my lantana that gets sun in the morning and the afternoon grows this tall. It's also growing close to a brick wall that protects it from any north winds! I have other ones that only get a couple of feet tall, but they also come back every year!
Any ideas where lantana is native to? It must be kind of tropical or else it would survive here.
In Portugal they grow all over the place as perenials and they look like bushes. Taller than me! Full of flowers. And they can bloom all year round.
I discovered on mistake just how much the butterflies love these plants! It was one of those happy accidents!
When I lived in Texas,I had to really prune them down or they would get like trees! Here in the Washington, DC area, I don't have to trim them so much.
You did a wonderful job of capturing the butterfly as he was sampling the nectar. I love the details of the flowers and their bicolored petals. Nicely done!
May your day be steeped in happiness and sunshine.
Thank you and all the best to you also!
I have never seen a damselfly and I have never seen Lantana. Maybe it is a plant that only grow in warmer climates.
Watching the life cycle of a plant over the year is interesting but noticing how this one plant interacts with butterflies and bees and finds its niche in an ecosystem is a lesson in life.
Thank you
You are probably right, lantana probably grows mostly in the southern parts of the USA. Yes, all kinds of butterflies, bees and insects love these flowers!
beautiful photography friend You have my support. I hope to count on your support to keep growing. regards
You have this way of brightening someone's day with beautiful flower pictures from your garden.....lantana flowers looks beautiful.
Do have a blessed day my friend.
nice photos, in my country that plant is known as "boyfriend" but what I like is that it has mixed colors, here are unicolors ... great photo
I like their diversity of colors!
Very beautiful libellule, they are so difficult to photograph,
it takes a lot of patience.
Some really nice close in work!
We have so many lantanas around! Never saw a damselfly on them.
Such a beautiful shots you captured there! :)