Diplodocus

That's how I jokingly refer to this plant, dipladenia, because I couldn't remember its name. I think it's more commonly known as mandevilla, from what I read on the internet. I first saw the bright red flowers of dipladenia across the road at our neighbor's house a couple of years ago. We went over and found the plant's label in one of the pots. The next year, I got some for our deck planters from one of the local garden centers.

Dipladenia in the real fake well, surrounded by clary sage which is now going to seed.

Last fall, we dug them out of their planter boxes and put them in pots in the greenhouse where they spent the winter. They survived, but didn't look so good. We set them outdoors in May and they started to produce more leaves and then flowers. I decided to plant them in the well once the volunteer wheat crop was gone. That happened this week and the photo above shows the result. I'm hopeful that the plants will get stronger and fuller as the summer goes on. The red flowers are quite vibrant.

In case you don't know, "diplodocus" was a dinosaur similar in appearance to the brontosaurus.