Featured plant - a special for your collection

Allamanda - a Queen of every blooming garden, in Her diversity...

Scientific name: Allamanda spp.
Family: Apocynaceae
Varieties in colors: Yellow (single and double, dwarf, bush, vine), Cherry, White, Peach, Chocolate, Cream, Golden-Orange
Origin: Tropical America, Thailand hybrids

Summer season is coming, with all its colors and beauty. There are not so many plants as popular in warm climate gardens as Allamanda with its golden trumpets covering the entire plant year around. It is easy in cultivation, fast growing and will add color and sunshine in any landscape in no time.

Recently a few new interesteing cultivars were brought into the plant market, and "Cherry Jubilee" vine became one of the most popular and sought after. Cream and chocolate flowers vary in shades. Very rare hybrid from Thai land with white flowers is called "Alba" or "Blanca" - it has smaller leaves and is more delicate vine than traditional vigorous yellow flower species. Some varieties, including "Cherry" and "Blanca", are sweetly fragrant, especially during warm evening hours.

Allamandas are different in shapes and growth habit. From a dwarf shrub (Allamanda schottii 'Compacta') suitable for boarders to full-size shrubs (Allamanda cathartica) and vigorous vines that can cover a fence with a beautiful blooming mass within 1-2 seasons (Allamanda hendersonii, Allamanda violacea Cherry Jubilee).

There are many plants close-related to Allamanda that have similar looking flowers, of more colors and shades. It's another garden favorite - Mandevilla (one of the most spectacular is Mandevilla x amoena Alice du Pont); rose-scented Strophantus gratus (Rose Allamanda) - relatively new plant, color of its flowers has mixed shades of light pink, lavender and cherry; Urechites - known also as Wild Allamanda or Yellow Mandevilla; Cryptostegia grandiflora (Purple Allamanda) - with very showy bright purple flowers and attractive glossy leaves (hence called Rubber Vine).

Allamandas, mandevillas and other close related plants mentioned here, all belong to Apocinaceae - the plant family that also inclused famous fragrant Plumerias, showy desert roses - Adeniums, and lovely white flowered Tabernaemontanas (Pinwheel flowers). All these plants have milky sap and all parts of them are poisonous - do not eat or chew them, and educate your kids about these plants' properties. However, house pets and other animals are not in danger. These plants are harmless for them.

Order the plants
with flowers and/or buds:

Allamandas:

Allamanda collection: 5 plants for the price of 3!