Count Your Blessings!

With love and passion, everyone can have a nice garden...Elaine Yim

Count Your Blessings!
Count The Garden By The Flowers, Never By The Leaves That Fall.
Count Your Life With Smiles And Not The Tears That Roll.
..... Author unknown.

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Malaysian Flora USDA Zone 11
Welcome to our exotic world of everlasting summers and tropical rainforests!

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Allamanda

Allamandas are native to South and Central America but they have become naturalised througout the tropics. You can either find them as a woody evergreens or vines. The flowers are large and bright and blooms all year round. Allamanda is named after Dr. Frederich Allamanda, an 18th century Swiss botanist.

Also known as Yellow Bell, Golden Trumpet or Buttercup Flowers, it belongs to the Apocynaceae family. Allamandas are planted as shrubs or ornamental house plants. They are sun loving plants that require adequate watering.


Scientific name: Allamanda cathartica
Family: Apocynaceae
Common names: Yellow Bell, Golden Trumpet
Malay name: Bunga Akar Kuning, Akar Chempaka Hutan
I found this allamanda cathartica plant with unusually large flowers at a restaurant in Ipoh where I was having dinner. I think the flowers are twice as large as the normal ones that I see around here. The leaves are bigger and stems thicker.
I really like this version with the large yellow flowers. I couldn't help taking out my camera to photograph it. The restaurant owner was very happy with all the attention given to her priced possession. She even offered to give me a cutting to bring home to plant! She told me that she didn't buy it from any nursery but it was planted from a cutting from her mom's plant. The plant was blooming well because she had used fertilizer on it. Then she proceeded to pluck a portion of the stem and gave it to me. She seemed to know what she was doing, so I took it home to try to plant it. Actually I was quite sceptical that this will work.

This is the type that I usually see around my neighbourhood. I think it is alamanda nerriflolia. The flowers are more numerous but smaller. This owner has trained the plant to become leggy and allowed to sprawl. A plastic string is used to tie the branches together, around a pole. Sometimes, I even seem some allamanda plants trained to climb lamp posts or around another tree. The bright yellow flowers really make the tree look more beautiful.

When I got home, I soaked the cut stem in a container of water. Surprisingly, it rooted afer 2 days. I didn't even need to use the rooting inducer powder. However, I had to wait a bit longer for the shoots to appear. It is now growing quite slowly so I am keeping my fingers cross at the moment. Hopefully this works.

13 comments:

  1. Salam Autumn Belle!
    I left you a message on Blotanical.
    Have a wonderful day!
    Alice
    aka Bay Area Tendrils Garden Travel

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lovely flowers!
    I tried the same thing with a plumeria but I think the cutting was too old to root. It died.
    Sounds like you shouldn't have any problems with yours.

    Just don't forget to water it.

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  3. Wow! I've never seen them in the garden before. Here we're only abel to keep them inside the house. Purhaps they could stay out in the garden during the summer? It looks lovely at your pictures / gittan

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  4. That is a really beautiful flower. Hope it will get roots soon. Happy weekend Autumn Belle! Kaija

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  5. What a great flower and lovely that your cutting is doing well. Part of the fun of gardening is the memories the plants bring to us.

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  6. Wow, to imagine a world where these flowers are an everyday thing in the neighborhood! I would like to try growing plants from cuttings. I don't really attempt that much - except for something like a cactus plant or coleus. What zone is Malaysia?

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  7. Good for you! I hope you get a lovely big blooming plant soon. Plus you'll also have a lovely memory attached to it , of a friendly neighbour who was so generous.

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  8. What a pretty flower, I've never seen or heard of it before. How wonderful that your cutting rooted so quickly!

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  9. simply beautifully captured shots...lovely flower!

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  10. Lovely allamanda... Belle, we have much bigger alamanda in Putrajaya! (with one L). We called these "bunga loceng" in younger days.
    ~bangchik

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  11. Thank you all for the visit to my blog and for the nice comments. I will update on the progress of this seedling if there are any good results. At the moment, growth is very slow. I am now trying to abstain from giving it too much attention.

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  12. Beautiful pics. This is one of my favorite climbers in our sub-tropical climate. we have few varieties of this plant here. one is with purple blooms and other is chocolate one. reliable and heavy bloomer from April-October if provided with moisture and proper food.

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  13. Muhammad, I can imagine how beautiful your garden will be when all the colours are in bloom.

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