Week of May 24, 2020

The weather has again reached the daily 90 degree temperature pattern for North Central Florida In this last week of May.  We can expect this to be the pattern everyday until September.  Along with the heat hopefully comes the late afternoon showers, but sometimes those rains don’t happen, leaving us hot and dry.  The flower beds In our gardens are planted for this, with a mainstay being the lantana, known for its heat and drought tolerance.  They make a scraggly perennial bush, with not very dense leaves and branches, which tend to extend out to cover unoccupied  space.  We use lantana three places.  We have light blue lantana in the same front bed since we moved here in 2013.  It grows under the crepe myrtle and gets water from the sprinkler.  A second group of lantana are joined with some Pentas in the bed around the fire hydrant next to the street.  They have a rose-colored blooms o with yellow petals.  The third place for lantanas is under the Pindo palm at the corner of the Lanai.  We have had difficulty getting the lantanas to be perennials at this spot, as the yellow ones we used to plant there never lasted more than one season.  We planted a new variety at the spot, a light yellow with some pink highlighted petals.  They are going well so far.   We can expect blooms on the lantana until the fall and good ground cover to keep out the weeds.  TAP