Hello expert gardeners, I am no expert but I love brightly colored flowers and I adore lantana, which grow as annuals in my New Jersey zone 6. I have a mulched bed in front of my house which gets full sun all day. Iris and daffodil bulbs Bloom there in May. For the last 4 years I have planted 6 or 7 lantana around the perimeter of the circle once the bulbs are finished. I plant Brightly colored lantana, red Orange yellow hot pink. They usually do beautifully, growing to several times their starting size and flowering profusely all summer long. I water them well and take off spent Blooms and seeds. For some reason, this year they have not really grown and have barely flowered. The leaves are green and look fine, but there are hardly any flowers. I bought them from the same reputable garden center I always use. The gardening center also suggested I use fertilizer which I'd never have before, so I did but it did not Help. can anyone suggest reasons why my lantena might not be blooming this year? I would appreciate any help, thank you very much!

I see flowers...
I think that you may need to give them time.
You grow them as annuals? How sad.
You can't pot them up and bring them inside?
Or... Cover entire plant with mulch over the winter?
Is how I propagate... Cover stems with mulch over the winter, they root, take cuttings in spring...

I also wonder if they are just not as developed as they've been previous years, so, just more time.
I have not had super success with overwintering lantana here. 50/50.

Hi & welcome! Inspect the back sides of the leaves for lace bugs.

Did you do anything else differently this spring? Is there landscape fabric or plastic under the mulch?

Thanks for the thoughts!
1) They won't overwinter here, I've tried, it's too cold, they die. Unfortunately I don't have room to bring them in.
2) No lace bugs.
3) I don't think it's a matter of giving them more time. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never had this problem before. I usually plant them and they just keep flowering. This year, I bought them with lots of flowers, they continued to flower for about a month, and then they just all stopped flowering and started losing the blooms. I could tell something was wrong, even when I took off the spent stems, the petals would just all fall to the ground.
4) I didn't do anything else different that I'm aware of. No fabric of any kind. This is a circle where a old oak tree used to stand. It fell down during a storm about 8 years ago. Since then, the daffodils and irises keep coming up, and when they're done I always mulch and plant annual flowers. (I know lantana are perennial in some climates, but not here.)
5) The only thing I've noticed that's different is that I've gotten a handful of slime mold patches in places on my mulch this year. Not in that circle but elsewhere in the yard. I've never seen that before. So maybe there's something different about the mulch? But since there's no problem near these lantana, I'm not sure if that could be related.

Total mystery!

And I thought they were bullet proof. I have no ideas

The slime mold is unrelated. Is something nibbling @ the tips, the buds?

No, I don't think anything's nibbling. I have noticed that some of the stalks that produce flowers seem a bit shorter than other years. It's all so weird, cant figure it out!

Try a fertilizer with a high phosphorus count, the second number. I would use a water soluble one, the plants benefit faster than with granular. When did you plant? I've grown lantanas for years, and they can be a little fussy right after you plant them. Mine did this year, but it's full of blooms now. It's a shock to be transplanted, and sometimes plants put their energies into growing and repairing the roots and leaves, rather than direct that energy to blooms.

Agree. It takes about 4-6 yrs for a Lantana to really establish. I think they would be too expensive compared to the results, as annuals. If Lantanas aren't happy, maybe consider Pentas.

I wonder if some of the for-sale plants at stores have been given some kind of growth retardant. The last few shrubs I have gotten of several types just don't grow, stuck in time.

Lantanas seem to like our climate, there are some that are perennials in this zone, but you have to look for them. Usually lantanas are sold as just "lantana" and no variety noted.
Because of our long growing season, lantanas planted in early April get really big by our frost.

They're perennial here, but not evergreen.

This is a 7 year old cutting.

The perennial ones here lose their foliage, too.