Before we were living here, the people who did live here planted a lot of flowers...shrubs, bigger shrubs, and a leaning, viney sort of thing.
The leaning, viney sort of thing sprouted back up about a year after the flower beds were cleaned up and the bulbs moved to pots.
We didn't know what to make of it. It came up in the middle of the native (chile pequin) pepper we have there, and we didn't want to destroy the pepper to get this other oddity out. Thus it continued to grow.
It has now commenced to flowering.
This striking trumpet shaped blossom is 5 to 6 inches across...times 2.54 is around 15 cm. for my metric-zone readers.
Digging around on the interwebs gives me the name Allamanda. It is a tropical vine, climbs by leaning, so it needs to be tied to a support, and is said to have a scent. We will probably tie it to the pergola column and grid overhead so it can bloom without being in the way.
It's the same color of yellow as the esperanza bush that is also blooming right now, in the very teeth of the 100⁰F weather.
You might wonder why we have a chile pequin pepper growing in the flower bed. It attracts the mockingbirds, who sing beautifully and are entertaining when they chase animals and people away from their favorite berry bushes. Also if you pick the ripe tiny peppers before the birds get them, you can dry them or make (scaldingly hot) pepper sauce.
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