Count Your Blessings!

With love and passion, everyone can have a nice garden...Elaine Yim

Count Your Blessings!
Count The Garden By The Flowers, Never By The Leaves That Fall.
Count Your Life With Smiles And Not The Tears That Roll.
..... Author unknown.

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Malaysian Flora USDA Zone 11
Welcome to our exotic world of everlasting summers and tropical rainforests!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Lantana, My Favourite For This Season

Today is Blooming Friday, October Week 2. The theme this week is "my favourite for Autumn". As I live in the tropics, I only have summer all year round. Envy me? But I envy you too. How I long to see the ground that I tread on covered with fallen leaves of red and gold, and I wish I could touch real snow with my bare hands. See, how lucky you are! Actually I am quite fickle and my favourite flower changes every now and then.

Yes, yes, my favourite now. Tada... Ladies and Gentlemen! Presenting my Fave Flower, The Lovely Lantana!

I love they way they start off as tiny dots and pretty little 'ribbons' which later changes colour as it grows and matures.

I have a few Lantana Camaras which come in different combination of colours. I have mixed 2 different plants together in one container to achieve the multicolour effect.

Locally, we call it the bunga tahi ayam, meaning chicken dung flower. I just love the smell. Chicken dung to some, but exotic scent for me! Lantana attract the most beautiful butterflies to my garden. Before having lantana, only the pretty teeny weeny ones came. Now, even the bigger beautiful butterflies are coming my way.
This perennial flowers the whole year through. The leaves and stems are quite hairy and the pretty littly flowers come in clusters. Actually lantanas are very easy to grow. They are quite hardy and seldom attacked by pests since their body parts are poisonous anyway. Sometimes, I see lantanas growing wild in the countryside.

Another common name for lantana is "Ham 'n Eggs" due to the pink and yellow colour scheme. Or would you like to call it "Bacon 'n Eggs instead"?
Do you grow lantana in your garden and what colours do you have?
Meanwhile, I wish everyone a Happy Weekend!

This is my entry for Blooming Friday. My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.



31 comments:

  1. I brought back this flower from my jogging trail besides Prai River. It grows by then, with minimum care. I like this way.

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  2. Hi Autumn Belle! There is no lantana in my garden.If I needed to chose, my favorite would be a pink one, it looks lovely on your pictures!

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  3. Hi Autumn Belle...I love Lantana too..I am a kindred.There is just something special about this pretty plant! Great post and gorgeous photos!

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  4. Hi,
    I wish I could send some snow your way. It is really dumping in the mountains tonight.
    I have not grown Lantana, but it is a beautiful plant and I would love to try it. If it would survive! Your photos are great, and the ham and eggs Lantana are a nice color combo.
    Rosey

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  5. I'm going to ask a stupid question. Like the stupidest thing you've ever heard, and I hope no one else reads this b/c it's totally ignorant. So I know you're tropical over there, and don't have 4 seasons like I do here on the east coast of the US. So does this mean you also don't have bulbs that bloom in the spring or azalea or forsythia blooms or autumn blooming bulbs - resurrection lilies or things like that? I love love love autumn and look forward every year to leaves falling, raking, weather turning cool, it's wonderful. Anyway, I know this is dumb, but I guess if you don't ask, you don't learn.

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  6. I have lantana, great wads of it. Lantana montevidensis in lavender and also the trailing in yellow. It is a wonderful groundcover and butterflies are crazy for it. One or the other of the colors are in bloom almost year 'round. Oh, and I added some white this year.

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  7. The Lantana looks so happy in your photos. I can see why it is happy with all your admiration of it. Blooming year round. What a hard worker Lantana is.

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  8. Pretty bloom.
    other than being a pretty flower, it's considered a weed here. nevertheless lantana briquettes are source of alternate fuel for rural poor households. currently, briquette-ing technologies are/have being developed to explore more...amazing, isn't it?

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  9. Hello. Thank you for drawing attention to the beauty of Lantana. I don't think there are any plants that can beat them for their beautiful, vibrant color!

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  10. Those are really beautiful, colourful flowers!//Eva

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  11. Thank you for showing such a beautiful flower. So lovely! Summer all year round? Yes, please. We can change, you and me!? Have a nice week end!

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  12. Oh, how lovely that you have chosen this small delicate little flower as your favorite. You made it sound so wonderful that I plan to put some into my garden next spring. The increased butterfly action sounds like a real bonus!

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  13. Nice flowers you're showing today. I can imagine that you long for autumn and its chilly winds and darkness, but once you have experienced it, it's not that funny any more. :-) Setidaknya itu pengalaman saya yang juga pernah tinggal di negara tropis (negara tetangga Anda). Salam dari jauh! /andré

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  14. Lantanas are so pretty! Oh wow you have so many kinds. I like to see them in the nurseries especially when they have plenty in a plot. I like the one in yellow and orange. Have a great weekend!

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  15. I had my lantana plant but passed it to my inlaws as I do not have enough sunlight for them to bloom.

    The wild ones have berries but they do become leggy and some do have thorns, so do watch out for those spikes.

    There are so many variety now, white, yellow, purple and even the hanging types.
    Hope to see more colourful radiant, everlasting blooms that brighten your day!!!

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  16. All year summer sounds good to me, I hate the cold and the expense of heating the house in the Winter, not to mention the inability of growing food :(

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  17. Lovely shots of your favorite plant. I love Lantana too and have some in my orangerie. But yours are more beautiful!
    Happy weekend.
    Randi

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  18. So lovely. Beautiful colors. I can see why it is your favorite.
    Sunny :)

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  19. After you spent a week by Lillebeth in Sweden your are most welcome to swop a week with me in Norway as well :)

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  20. Autumn Belle it is one of my favorite bloomers also. It is an annual here but I bring it in to overwinter it. Do you know where the seeds are on it? I would like to try to grow more from seed.

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  21. I can well understand why you like these flowers so much - they're all beautiful!

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  22. I like the pink ones! I make standards (tree-form) out of lantanas every year...it's easy! Give it a try, Autumn Belle, especially as you can grow it all year round!
    I'll trade you 2 weeks of winter wonderland in NJ for your balmy tropics come January...just like the movie, The Holiday ;)

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  23. Rainfield, I thought so too. I have seen the wild lantana that looks like the ham and egg version growing in the countryside.

    Tatyana, Kiki, Mary Delle, Noelle, Eva, LeSan, Stephanie, Randi, Sunny,
    I’m glad you all like the lantana. I guess this is my version of autumn since it has red and orange flowers.

    Rosey, thank you for the snow shovels. I can feel almost feel it coming. You are so lucky to receive snow early. I still remember vividly your ‘sugar dusted’ mountain slopes post recently.

    Wendy, I’m really glad you asked me this good question. It makes me start thinking too. I can’t grow the narcissus, azaleas, daylilies, chrysanthemums, plum or cherry blossoms successfully due to our hot weather here. We can only grow this at the temperate highlands like Cameron Highlands, Keningau Sabah or even Genting Highlands. Same applies to oranges and apples. That’s why I am really looking forward to your autumns and winters.

    Nell Jean, there you are. You have just proof to us again that butterflies love lantana. I purposely grow lantanas to attract butterflies. White lantana? Oh Wow! I have never seen this before.

    Urban Green, thank you for the additional interesting information. We do have quite similar climates, don’t we?

    Lillebeth, thank you for your offer of place swapping. Sweden and the snow capped mountains of the Alps? Oh, Wow! I’ll love it.

    Andremoller, I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. You are so lucky to have experienced both. Anda sudah fasih dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Saya juga ingin melawat laman blog anda. Salam Sejahtera!

    James, lantanas certainly like a lot of sun. Luckily mine don’t have thorns. You mentioned about white lantanas too. I’ll certainly look out for the wet ones and I wish to grow them.

    Barry, you got me thinking about the heating expense and food supplies.

    Mia, I like Norway. I’ll love the midnight sun there too.

    Hocking HG, I grow them from seedlings purchased from the nurseries here. This way I get to choose the colour combinations that I like. I’m not so sure about the seeds though.

    Katarina, thank you very much for your visit and nice comments and for hosting Blooming Friday. I love it!

    Lynn, I’m still checking on the daylilies here. I saw some of them at The Secret Garden of 1U but still unable to flower yet. Wow, New Jersey? I’ll love it.

    My dear friends, thank you so much for your offer of spending autumn and winter at your place. Tonight I have many sweet dreams.

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  24. Autumn Belle, I must say, I agree with you. My favourite flower changes from day to day, never mind, month to month.
    The lantanas are beautiful however.

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  25. My favorites change all of the time too. Lantana is a great summer plant here -- it really loves heat!

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  26. Your photos show their true beauty. I really like lantana, too! Mine are still blooming like crazy. LOvE ThEm!

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  27. Its my first visit to this blog. Love your efforts.

    They are wonderful looking flowers. Love the colours.

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  28. I notice lantana or its cousins at roadsides and at the fringe of forest. Living wild, lantanas seem to be reaching for the sky, getting a little bit more lanky. But yours are definitely very tame.. small, bushy and heavy with flowers. Beautiful! ~bangchik

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  29. Hi Autumn Belle,

    I do so appreciate your name more now knowing how you would love to experience fall. It is in full glory here... I will post more photos with you especially in mind. I love your Lantana blooms as I am sure do many lovely butterflies... you will have to share some of the exotic ones you must have there. As for snow and cold... well ... you can at times have too much of a good thing. Mid winter I will look forward to visiting your blog for warmth. Carol

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  30. I've been so lax in my blog visits because of recent family commitments, but I had to stop and comment on this post -- your lantana is gorgeous, and I think it's a real show-stopper in any garden. It's just about my all-time favourite flower...love those gradients of vibrant colour. :) Beautiful!

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  31. Kilbournegrove, Sweetbay, Amy, Mania, Carol, Nancy Bond,
    Thank you for dropping by my blog and for the nice comments. Yes, we are in the same boat. Just like the butterflies, we too are attracted to the beauty of the lovely lantana.

    Bangchik, you notice the wild lantanas too. I’m wondering whether lantanas have become a native here.

    Carol, I’ll be hopping over to your blog to see autumn pictures. I am patiently collecting photos of butterflies at the moment. Butterflies are too fast for me and my camera. It is so difficult to photograph them. I will post butterflies when I get a some photos.

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