Allamanda cathartica

If that tall wall on the previous pic.is covered in these flowers it will look gorgeous ...

This is well behaved vine I really like it Amy. .

Oh,those are beautiful. The yellow in person...is pure. A.cathartica is the nicest of the family.

I agree.

Klahanie:

This vine is definitely not a well-behaved. It can grow extremely fast and is very difficult to keep in bounds, especially in the tropics. It's a gorgeous vine, though.

I have Allamanda 'Cherries Jubilee' (which is less vigorous) and it was starting to take over my back yard this summer. I had to cut it way back to keep it as a standard.

Delonix, this plant only grew a foot since we left last February. Comparing to our aggressive Thunbergia grandiflora vine (which grows a foot every week) it is a complete pussy cat :-)

Your specific vine is the exception. Typically, it grows many feet within a few weeks.

Thunbergia species are another extremely fast growing vine. I took my Thunbergia 'Blushing Susan' out in Dec. of 2010 and I still have hundreds of seedlings popping up all over my front yard and in my potted plants.

Delonix, this specific "vine" is much more woody than the rest of the vines mentioned and its leaves are shiny and very firm (hard) . But I think the soil here is very poor. Even lantanas are not doing well. You probably will think that it is impossible. LOL.

I believe it. The soil here is poor and has been hard like concrete for over a year. We were lucky we received some really good subtropical rains coming up from Hawaii this past week (for 3 days). Northern California and the Los Angeles areas had the bulk of the really heavy flooding rains, though. Now today it's dry and back up to 81 degrees where I live. It's suppose to rain again by the end of this week. I really do hope it happens..as I'm so tired of this extreme drought.

I hope it will rain for you Delonix. It is very dry here too. But we do not have it so hot.

I must admit that the only A.cathartica (at Oxfords Botanic Gardens) that I'm familiar with is far from well behaved!
I would still love to grow it though.

I do not doubt you speaking from your experience. I compared the pictures from last year and no real change. Maybe a foot at most :-) Looked healthier last year. More flowers.

Klahanie:

Is the area where the vine is planted in severe drought? Severe drought conditions would explain why this vine is growing so slowly.

As far as I know they had some rain during the summer and the gardener comes once a week and water it now in the dry season . there are 4 plants and they look they were planted at the same time and couple od them look very sad. I started to water them too and will see if it will help a little. I know the soil is poor.

Maybe it's the gardener cutting the vine back regularly?