Lantana not blooming is an issue you may have for several reasons, but there are different solutions to this.
The leaves of the trailing lantana that belongs to the Verbenaceae family are highly aromatic when scratched and bruised, as lantana blooms continuously from early and late spring to the year’s first frost.
Lantana is a sun-loving, flowering evergreen shrub growing as a bushy dark leaved mound, so it would be an issue to worry about when they are not blooming.
Observation will be key, but today we will mention some of the most usual issues that will remind you of what may have gone wrong.
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Why isn’t Your Lantana Blooming?
Your lantana isn’t blooming because lace bugs have infested it, or due to too much fertilizer being placed. It could be because you have deadheaded them, and they have dried; it could also be due to poor light, heavy pruning, root rot, or transplanting shock.
Growing lantana varieties like Lantana Camara or Lantana Montevidensis is really easy — these plants grow to around five feet tall and three to 10 feet wide. You can easily grow lantanas in moist, well-drained soils and full sun! They are extremely tolerant to heat, humidity, and even drought. However, you should follow this guide on how to water plants in extreme heat!
– Lace Bugs
Lace bugs are often-times the cause for lantana plants not blooming. Adult bugs are flat and rectangular and around a quarter inch long. The entire surface of this bug is covered with a lace-like protection on the top, hence the name. The wings are often see-through greenish, grey, or amber.
Unlike other insects that are sap suckers, these bugs will do the most damage on the top sides of the leaves. Identification can be confirmed by black excrement drops on the leave’s upper sides and the discolored lead cells’ presence. If you don’t deal with these pests early in the year, the damage to evergreens like lantana will be evident for over a year.
– Too Much Fertilizer
You can always have too much of a good thing, but the same can be said for plants. Plants enjoy a healthy dose of nitrogen, calcium, and potassium they can’t find in the soil to be added. But if you overfeed your lantana plants, they will rebel by struggling with growth and even responding with little to no blooms.
Essentially, you’re suffocating the roots with too many mineral crystals, which in time will get in the way of water reaching the root system. This can cause problems far worse than just blooms not showing up, and because of the excess fertilization, your plant would go through a shocking phase.
– Dried up Because of Deadheading
If you don’t address deadheaded leaves soon enough, your lantanas won’t go over too much trouble producing fresh blooms. If you have excessively deadheaded them, then, the challenge is that they will not have the ability to encourage the blooms again.
Deadheading is a state in which your lantana plant is spending too much of its resources to sustain the old blooms at the detriment of new ones. Lantanas blooms stay on the plant for an entire growing season, but they may wilt or even dry up if illness or something else happens.
– Poor Light
If there’s one thing that your plant will require of you, it’s the sunlight — and plenty of it. Other than those pretty blossoms, these are the plants that have plenty of green and without the light, they won’t be able to photosynthesize the light and turn it into much-needed energy when it’s time to push flowers out.
– Gone Dormant due to Pruning
Pruning should be done at specific times of the year, and seldom when the plants are in their growth phase.
Essentially, pruning lantana plants in the off-season can trigger your plants to go dormant, or just develop new greenery and focus on producing foliage rather than blooming.
– Root Rot
Roots rot is a condition caused by a fungal infection and is often triggered by an overly moist soil situation. Almost always the problem is with our watering regime and the soil choice for our plants, and when you do so, excessively that is when the plant will be in a stunted position.
Even thought gardeners will aim to stick to a daily watering schedule, regardless of how the soil looks, this will kick-start the root rot issues. If the soil is already moist, and we add water to it, it will get waterlogged in time and the roots cannot live in constantly moist conditions without any air.
The roots will become suffocated by too much water and begin deteriorating. In such conditions disease will surely trigger that will slowly creep their way from the roots and into the lantana flowers leaving our plants without any blooms and even leaves. Note that too compact or loamy soils can create a rot situation as they will get water clogged all too easily, so you should put some effort toward soil aeration.
– Transplanting Shock
If you’re growing your lantanas in containers, they will sometimes become root bound and therefore need repotting. When plants are root bound, their roots become too large for the container and haven’t any more room to grow. As a result, the soil quality, water retention, and aeration are greatly disturbed, and the plant is struggling to push the top growth too!
When you try planting lantanas often stresses them to adjust to the new soil and container, so the blooms may come a bit later in the year. If you’ve recently repotted your beautiful plant, and it’s not producing any blooms, you should consider giving it time to recover.
How To Deal With Lantanas That Aren’t Blooming?
To deal with lantanas that aren’t blooming, you should first fight the bugs that have been infested, or you should feed it in the right amount, and try to deadhead the top only. Make sure that you would provide the right light, and to transport the plant properly.
– Fighting The Bugs
Always inspect your lantanas in the early spring for any signs of pest infestation. Do this every other week to ensure your plant is going strong and will push the blooms at the end of spring. If the plant already has a history of bug infestation, employ some control measures.
You should also try to check the type of pest that has infested, tackle them accordingly and the right way. If you have larger insects present in your garden, you should hold off on applying chemical insecticides as these will keep your bug population in check.
If only a few lantana lace bugs are present, you can deal with them just by a strong stream of water. However, if you’re dealing with a full fledge infestation, you may want to apply some homemade insecticide based on hand soap or horticultural oil and water mixture, and this way you wouldn’t start seeing the plant grow again.
– Feed The Right Amount
If your lantanas don’t show signs of infestations, yet are still struggling, then you’ve probably gone overboard with the fertilizer. Too often we apply fertilizers without giving them a second thought. Plant foods should only be considered supplements and not staples in a plant diet.
After all, you’re feeding the soil and not the plant directly, which means the soil may be too rich in minerals and can have crystals forming on root tips and suffocating your plants. Always use fertilizers cautiously and abide by the feeding recommendation stated on the fertilizer label, so that it adapts well.
– Deadheading the Top Only
Suppose your plant has dry blooms that it keeps on unnecessarily. In that case, you can assist it by deadheading it and producing new colorful growth, but make sure only to prune or deadhead the above parts and not excessively. Deadheading is a process where you manually remove flowers or dried vegetation from the plant, which means don’t tackle the healthy ones.
Oftentimes we stick to mundane and boring schedules when it comes to planting care — this takes the joy out of caring for our green friends. Try instead to establish a relationship and look at your plants with care and studious eyes.
– Provide the Right Light
Always keep your lantanas in good enough light conditions. As we said, they won’t be too fussy about a lot of things, as long as you can provide adequate lighting. And always prune your lantanas at the right time of the year — late winter and early spring are great times to prune away the old growth and encourage the new.
The plants’ blooms grow in clusters two inches wide, with purple, yellow, red, and orange flowers often mixed in the same cluster. That way, your lantana will create a lovely garden scenery, but this can go sideways sometimes, so with the right light, the flowers may take some time into spring to fully bloom.
– Transplant Properly
If you see that the soil is getting too soggy even with irregular watering, transplant your plants before they develop rot.
You would want to make your watering regime better for your plants generally — always water lantanas when the topsoil gets dry, and don’t any water when it’s still moist.
Conclusion
Lantana plants not blooming can be caused by many different things.
You’d always want to take a step back and study the plant a bit, as it doesn’t always mean something serious is going on:
- Your lantanas not producing blooms will either be caused by some sort of infestation or can result from how you treat your plant.
- You can always get rid of laces by applying general insecticides. However, growing conditions can sometimes require you to make full alterations to how you take care of the plant.
- Always feed your lantanas the right amount, keep them in good sun, and avoid getting them to get too drunk on water.
If you follow these basic guidelines, your common lantanas will thank you with a bountiful blooming season each year.
