Name That Tree

Yesterday Wendy, Alexander, Rebecca, and I enjoyed the last "family day" (school hasn't started, and the farm store is closed) of the summer. We ended up in Fort Erie. The Niagara Parks Commision does an outstanding job of their flower beds (they must plant millions of them), and they are fantastic to look at. As a grower I enjoy seeing what they've planted, what combinations they're using, how they are doing, and seeing if I know the names of the plants. In the bed in front of the historic fort, we encountered something I've never seen before.

We saw a short tree, about 4 feet high, with a 1½" thick trunk, supporting a beautiful ball of orange flowers and green leaves. Now, I know what the flower is, we grow it, it's Lantana, and Lantana is not a tree. It is a beautiful flower, but it grows down at ground level, and certainly won't survive our winters. This is clearly a fake! So I look behind the foliage to see what type of pot they're using, and to my surprise, it is indeed a Lantana standard. Wow!

This Lantana is clearly a number of years old, I've no idea how they grow it in this form, I suspect it involves a lot of work and moving it into a greenhouse for the winter.