Watch this before cooking with black pepper! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
Watch this before cooking with black pepper!
Black pepper (Piper nigrum)
🍃 Watch this before cooking with black pepper!
Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is famous for its berries, but the leaves are edible too, and in some regions they’re used just like betel leaves or bay leaves. Here are a few ways you can use them:
Cooking wrap: Fresh leaves can be used to wrap fish, meat, or rice before steaming or grilling, similar to banana or betel leaves. They add a mild peppery aroma.
Flavoring curries and soups: Whole leaves can be simmered in curries, broths, or stews to infuse a gentle peppery note, then removed before serving (like bay leaves).
Herbal teas: Fresh or dried leaves can be steeped with ginger, turmeric, or lemongrass to make a warming tea traditionally used for digestion and colds.
Chutneys and pastes: In South India, young pepper leaves are ground with coconut, tamarind, and chilies to make a tangy chutney.
Medicinal uses: Folk remedies use the leaves for coughs, sore throats, and as a poultice for muscle aches.
🍛 Black pepper leaf chutney
♨️Lightly saute 6-8 pepper leaves in a little oil.
♨️Blend with 1/2 cup grated coconut, 2 green chilies, tamarind, salt, and cumin.
♨️Optional: top with a quick tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves.
♨️Serve with rice or dosa.
☕️ Pepper leaf tea - when you feel under the weather
Boil 2-3 leaves with a cup of water.
Add a slice of ginger and a pinch of turmeric (optional).
Simmer 5 minutes, strain, and sweeten with honey.
Both recipes give a warm, peppery aroma without being too spicy. Pepper leaves are milder than the berries, so you’ll get aroma more than heat.
Because they give you more bloom for less effort. They flower on and off
almost all year, they’re tough, and they come in colors you can
actually
plan a garden around.
Will they survive winter in my area?
In frost-free zones, yes, they come back bigger every year. If you’re
farther north, just keep them in pots and bring them inside for the cold
months.
Do they really bloom in shade?
They do. We’ve got a clump under a big oak and it still puts on a
show. Not as heavy as full sun, but enough to brighten the spot.
How big do they get?
Depends which one. Spathoglottis stays neat, about knee-high. Nun Orchid
shoots up tall spikes that can hit 4 ft. So you can go small or dramatic.
Are they hard to care for like other orchids?
Not at all. Forget the bark mix and misting bottles. Just plant them in
soil, keep the water steady, and feed once in a while. That’s it.
Can I grow them in pots?
Absolutely. They do great in containers. Makes it easy if you’ve only
got a patio or you want to move them in for winter. Use
well-drained soilless mix like Abundance
Potting Mix.
Do they attract pollinators?
Yep. Bees love them, butterflies too, and every so often a hummingbird will
check them out.
What is the best fertilizer?
For extra blooms, we use Sunshine Orchidasm
– Orchid TotalFeed Booster. Works like a charm!
Orchids have a mystique that sets them apart — elegant, exotic,
almost unreal in their perfection. But let’s be honest, not everyone
has
luck with the fancy ones that cling to trees or need greenhouse tricks.
Ground orchids are different. They grow in regular garden soil, bloom in
sun or shade, and come in all sorts of shapes and colors. They’re the
orchids you don’t have to fuss over.
Nun Orchid
(Phaius tankervilleae) – Ever wonder why it’s called the
Nun
Orchid? The flowers really do look like the white veil and brown habit nuns
used to wear. The plants send up spikes 3–4 ft tall with 10–20
fragrant blooms that open one after another for weeks. I like them best
tucked
under trees where they just keep spreading year after year.
Spathoglottis – The nonstop bloomer – If you want flowers
that
just don’t quit, this one’s it. Spathoglottis clumps up and
throws
spikes of purple, pink, or yellow that last for weeks, then keep coming back
through the summer. In warm spots they’ll bloom almost year-round.
Honestly, it’s one of the easiest orchids you’ll ever grow.
💲
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What flowers do NOT attract bees? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
What flowers do NOT attract bees?
Butterfly on a flower that doesn't attract bees
❌� What flowers do NOT attract bees?
Most tropical flowers bring in pollinators, and bees are usually first in line. But what if you’d rather avoid them? Maybe you’re allergic, or just don’t want bees buzzing around. Good news: some flowers attract butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, or even flies - but not bees.
👉 Quick rules:
✔️ Night-blooming + strong fragrance = moths or bats, not bees.
✔️ Red tubular flowers with little scent = hummingbirds or butterflies, not bees.
✔️ Rotten or fermented smell = flies, not bees.
✔️ Carnivorous plants = trap insects, no bee nectar.
1. Night-blooming, fragrant - moth and bat flowers
Bees forage by day, so many night-fragrant flowers skip them.
▫️Brugmansia - Angel’s Trumpet - big, hanging blooms, moth and bat pollinated.
An intelligent man. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
An intelligent man
Mr B the cat planning his evening at TopTropicals
🍷 An intelligent man
"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend his time with his fools.” - Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
🐈📸 Mr B the cat planning his evening at TopTropicals PeopleCats.Garden
Ground Orchid FAQ – Your Questions
Answered
