The multi-colored flowers of Lantana have endeared it to American gardeners since at least the beginning of the nineteenth century. Late eighteenth-century Virginia gardener Lady Jean Skipwith included in her list of plants the "Prickly Lantana (house plant) very brilliant, seldom without flowers." Nurseryman Bernard McMahon in The American Gardener's Calendar suggested lantana as a greenhouse plant, to be moved outdoors in summer. Robert Buist, influential garden writer of the early 19th century, wrote of lantana: "These are very handsome growing plants, and will even keep in a good green-house; but in such case will only bloom in summer."