Orange-Blooming Shrubs

Texas Lantana

• Robust orange blooms on a Texas Lantana mix with red and yellow blooms that all top a low and spreading shrub. Its bright blooms change color over the course of the spring, summer and fall. This plant's blooms start as yellow. As the growing season progresses, they turn orange and then red. Because the Lantana retains its blooms until the first frost and because it continues to produce new blooms all growing season, particularly when regularly pruned, the Lantana will brandish bright orange blooms almost the whole time. Not only does the Lantana have lustrous blooms, it also produces a strong aroma. Its green leaves give off as much scent as its flowers. Native to the Texas Rio Grande plains and known to thrive in surrounding areas, the Texas Lantana does well in the heat and in arid soil with sand or gravel. Frost, not drought, bothers the perennial Lantana. A winter pruning prepares it for the next season.

Flame Azalea

• Expanding to 1.5 to 2.5 inches, flame azaleas' large orange blooms stand out in its native terrain, the Appalachian Mountains. Flame azaleas are of the many deciduous native azaleas, or shrubs that shed their leaves in winter, in the southeast U.S. Other native azaleas with orange blooms are the Florida, Cumberland and plum leaf azalea varieties. Flame azalea shrubs do well in acidic soil, near pine and oak trees and usually grow between 2 and 6 feet tall. Some can reach as high as 9 feet. Most bear orange blooms early in spring but, in hundreds of seedlings, yellow and orange-red flowers may also appear. Occasionally, the flame azalea shrubs' leaves sport a reddish tinge. Akin to the rhododendron, flame azaleas have five to seven stamens per flower, making the orange blooms look like they've burst.

Hummingbird Bush

• The shrub knows as the hummingbird bush bears small tubular orange blossoms that spread out, seemingly into the air, because the thin stems holding them stretch 6 feet tall and 12 feet wide. A native of the south Texas countryside and the Sonoran desert in Arizona, California and northern Mexico, hummingbird bushes do well in arid soil and need little water to survive, though they can thrive in desert floodplains, as well. As its name suggests, the shrub's nectar-filled blooms attract hummingbirds. Two other names for the shrub are Justicia californica and chuparosa, which means "sucking rose" in Spanish. Because they are so flexible, the hummingbird bush can add color in almost any landscaping design. They bloom in early spring and again periodically throughout the summer.