Late-season lantana beckons
By Catherine Bollinger, Correspondent
The long-tailed skipper likes the late-season lantana.
They're supposed to be annual lantanas. That's what the label said when I bought them four years ago. I don't remember the cultivar name anymore, but along my front walk where I planted them, these lantanas have died back to the roots and resprouted for four years - so far.
My lantanas are still cranking out multicolored flowers in combinations of cotton candy pink, orange sherbet and an orange-yellow.
I distinctly remember that the plants were supposed to attain a height of 2 feet. Mine are 6 feet tall and bushy - and I've hacked them back four or five times this year to prevent the walk from being overtaken. I don't feed or water them, yet they reward me with beauty until first frost.
This time of year, they are the destination of choice for every wandering butterfly in the neighborhood. Occasional migrating monarchs, several sulphur butterfly species, fritillaries and myriad skippers all drift in and linger.
This week, the lantanas attracted a butterfly species we haven't seen before - a long-tailed skipper. The long tails on the hind wings are distinctive and combine with iridescent blue-green scales on its upper-side wings to give this skipper a very tropical look.
My books say that long-tailed skipper caterpillars are a pest of bean crops, so I may become less enamored with this beauty if its progeny plague my garden next year. But for now, I'll just enjoy the exotic touch they add to my late-season, multicolored lantana extravaganza.