Saugus Gardens in the Summer

Here’s what’s blooming in town this week to make your walks more enjoyable

By Laura Eisener

Common lantana (Lantana camara) is a popular tropical annual in our climate, used in gardens and window boxes for its continuous summer flower color until cool weather sets in. Most gardeners would be surprised to know that it can become a 20-foot-tall tree or shrub with thick woody stems in tropical regions or even in a large greenhouse. A member of the Verbena family (Verbenaceae), it produces clusters of four-petaled flowers. Like some other flowers, the blossoms change color once they have been pollinated, giving a signal to insects which blossoms may still contain pollen and nectar. Usually the blossoms start out yellow and change to pink, purple, orange, red or white once pollinated, depending on the variety. While there are 150 species of lantana, the most common by far in nurseries around here is common lantana, along with a few hybrids between that one and other lantana species.

If you have been in to Boston to see the art exhibit The Great Elephant Migration this summer, the 100 life-sized Indian elephants (Elephas maximus indicus) were created from stems of lantana, which is a serious invasive plant in much of India, crowding out native grasses and other plants in the forests where the elephants live and causing hunger for elephants and other forest inhabitants. The exhibit on Commonwealth Avenue will be on display in Boston until September 13. The exhibit has many goals, including increasing awareness of environmental issues, such as the degradation of natural habitat, decrease in elephant populations and importance of community open space (the exhibit has been situated in public parks across the U.S. over the past two years and is free and open to the public). Almost 200 indigenous community members from southern India created the sculptures, which will be sold individually, once the tour is completed, to benefit elephant conservation. The elephants were modeled after individuals of all ages from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in India.

Hardy only to USDA zone 10, lantana would not become an invasive issue here, but it has become a severe problem in much of the world, as it is fire resistant and has been spread from its native range in central America to Europe, Asia, Africa, Pacific Islands and pretty much everywhere outside its native range where temperatures allow it to survive. It has become an issue for farmers, since lantana is poisonous to livestock as well as to many wild animals. Lantana is also allelopathic, which means that its roots secrete chemicals that inhibit growth of some other plants, reducing competition. Birds can eat the small black fruits and disperse the undigested seeds. Bees, hummingbirds and some other insects consume the nectar. It has been used medicinally for a number of illnesses and conditions, although like many medicinal plants it may be toxic to people if used in the wrong dosage.

Today is the full moon. Those who looked for it just past midnight may have seen a lunar eclipse. The August full moon is usually known as the sturgeon moon, though it is also known as the corn moon, barley moon, herb moon and dog moon — the last name referring to the dog days of summer. Many of its names refer to the ripening of grains, but the sturgeon is a fish abundant in Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes.