Lantana camara 'Miss Huff'

Every so often a plant arrives not from a breeder's bench but from a neighbor's yard, and Lantana camara 'Miss Huff' is one of those happy accidents. The selection was found in cultivation near Athens, Georgia, in the garden of the Miss Huff for whom the plant is named, and introduced to the trade by the former Goodness Grows Nursery. What set this lantana apart was cold tolerance: where most of the tribe sulk and die at the first hard freeze, 'Miss Huff' has proven the hardiest lantana in commerce, with well-established clumps shrugging off brief dips to a few degrees below zero and returning faithfully from the root even in zone 7.

The species behind the cultivar belongs to the verbena family, Verbenaceae, and is almost certainly native to tropical America, though centuries of cultivation have carried Lantana camara into warm gardens and roadsides around the globe until the plant is now genuinely pantropic. The genus name is an old borrowing, taken by early botanists from a Latin name for the unrelated wayfaring tree, Viburnum lantana, whose rounded flower clusters the lantana echoes. Wherever the plant traveled, the aromatic leaves found a place in local folk medicine as poultices and infusions, though the same foliage and the green, unripe berries carry compounds called lantadenes that are toxic to grazing livestock, a reminder that this generous shrub is for looking and pollinating rather than eating.

From late spring the clumps push up on strong stems and cover themselves in domed flowerheads that open orange and age through gold to soft pink, so a single truss can carry three colors at once and the whole shrub reads like a struck match. Bloom never really pauses until frost. Butterflies find 'Miss Huff' irresistible, and swallowtails, monarchs, and skippers crowd the flowers alongside the occasional hummingbird; a near-sterility means the plant sets little seed, pouring that energy into yet more bloom instead of berries. Deer and rabbits leave the pungent foliage alone, and salt spray does the shrub no harm, which makes 'Miss Huff' as useful on a coastal lot as an inland one.

Give 'Miss Huff' room, because a happy, established clump can swell to head height and half again as wide, a summer-long fountain of color for the back of a sunny border or the center of an island bed. Full sun and soil that drains freely yet holds a little moisture suit the plant best. In the colder end of the range, plant in spring so the roots settle before winter, mound sand over the crown, and mulch well in fall to see the clump safely through; come the following May, cut the dead top to the ground and wait for the base to break. Pair the hot flowers with blue salvia, Russian sage, or ornamental grasses for a planting that hums with wings from June until the first freeze.