This is Ham and Eggs lantana. It blooms during the Spring. The rest of the time, it's a big, bushy, weed of a plant. Not particularly invasive, but hardy, hardy.When when first moved into this house, I didn't know what it was. It was just this big thing growing in our front garden. I assumed it was a weed and hacked it down to the ground.
I turned my back for a week ... and it came back, uttering joyous leaves of green, to paraphrase Whitman.
My mother visited. "Oh, you have lantana. I've been trying so hard to get it to grow at my house, but I just can't."
Maybe you're being too nice to it, I proffered.
There's a beautiful picture of a weed at Unmitigated Bliss. I like these weed flowers. It's botanical Darwinism at my house, bud. If you want to stay around, you'd better be hardy.
I'm more of a weed myself. I like to think that I'm like the lantana ... cut me down, and I'll just shoot back up again when you're not looking.
The best thing about lantana -- the company it keeps.
My Aunt Bert was a great gardener and a world traveler too. She would take off on a trip at the drop of a hat, with almost no luggage, and just go.
ReplyDeleteOne time my mother asked her what happens to the plants when she's gone?
She answered, "Survival of the fittest!"