Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

🎋 What is the most beautiful ginger? 5 most spectacular Ginger species.

Ginger is famous for its culinary and medicinal uses, and many species are also strikingly beautiful, making them perfect centerpieces for tropical gardens or potted plant collections, especially in shaded spots. Here are a few of our favorite cultivars.

• 🍭 Hedychium flavum x coronarium - Yellow Butterfly Ginger, Nardo Ginger Lily - rare hybrid of White Butterfly ginger we mentioned earlier, it is more vigorous and tall than its parent. With attractive long green leaves with a slight fuzziness, this ginger has open long spikes of pastel yellow flowers with a beautiful heady aroma. Exquisitely fragrant!
• 🍭 Costus arabicus (amazonicus) variegata - Variegated Spiral Ginger - is a show stopper! Very popular in Hawaii and Florida. Spiraling stems rise with a strong white variegation and topped with green and white cone like flowers. Vigorous grower, it prefers shade, moist soil and lots of water.
• 🍭 Zingiber Zerumbet - Pine Cone Ginger, Shampoo Ginger - is probably the most popular one. All parts of this ginger are spicy fragrant. The cone shaped flowers are long lasting and useful for cut flower arrangements. It is in fact used as a shampoo in Asia and Hawaii, and as an ingredient in several commercial shampoos! Pinecone ginger is considered a "canoe plant", that is, a plant introduced throughout the Pacific by the ancient Polynesian settlers.
• 🍭 Costus vargasii - Spiral Ginger Raspberry Yogurt - The name refers to the colorful raspberry colored stem, but that's not the only colorful thing about it: the leaves are dark green, long and glossy with velvety deep purple undersides. The inflorescence is a vivid red with tight bracts and bold yellow flowers. The butterflies love to drink the nectar from the flowers. Large vigorous ginger, growing up to 5-6 ft tall.
• 🍭 Costus fissiligulatus - African Princess, Cameroon Costus - from Gabon in West Africa. It has a dazzling pink trumpet flower with a yellow throat. It is very floriferous with an inflorescence of numerous flower buds on a shortish plant of 3-4 ft that stands very erect. It is an easy grower

📚 More gingers in previous posts:
Alpinia formosana x zerumbet Variegata - Variegated Ginger
Costus spicatus x woodsonii - Red Button Ginger, French Kiss
Hedychium coronarium - Butterfly Ginger
Kaempferia angustifolia - Laos Silver Stripe

❔ What is your favorite Ginger? Share in comments👇

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🍌 Why Bananas? They are good for you and are fun to grow!

• 💛 Bananas are berries, not fruits!
• 💛 They float in water like apples and watermelons.
• 💛 Bananas are high in potassium, which helps muscles work properly.
• 💛 They can improve your mood because they contain tryptophan, which your body turns into serotonin.
• 💛 Bananas are great for your heart because they have lots of fiber and potassium.
• 💛 Eating bananas can help with digestion since they are rich in fiber.
• 💛 They are a natural energy booster, perfect for a quick snack.
• 💛 Bananas can help keep your blood pressure in check due to their low sodium and high potassium content.
• 💛 They contain vitamins like B6 and C, which are good for your immune system.
• 💛 Rubbing the inside of a banana peel on mosquito bites can reduce itching and swelling.

❔ What is your favorite Banana or Plantain variety?
Share in comments👇

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⚡️What is a special effect of Lemon grass?

Besides its culinary uses, Lemon Grass is also known for its insect-repelling properties due to its citronella content. No more mosquitos! 😆

🛒 Order Lemon Grass

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☕️ How to grow your own tea? Where does the tea come from? From Camellia!

• 🍃 Did you know that tea comes from a Camellia plant?

Camellia sinensis - Tea Leaf Tree - is the plant used to make all types of true tea: green, black, white, and oolong.
• 🍃Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, after water.
• 🍃Green tea is rich in antioxidants, which help protect your cells from damage.
• 🍃Drinking tea can boost your immune system, help fight off infections, improve oral health by reducing the growth of bacteria.
• 🍃Regular tea consumption is linked to improved bone health and reduced risk of osteoporosis. It can aid in weight loss by boosting metabolism and help reduce the risk of heart disease.
• 🍃Tea contains caffeine, which can improve mental alertness and focus. On the other hand, tea contains L-theanine, an amino acid that promotes relaxation and reduces stress.
• 🍃The plant is very slow growing, can be grown in container or in the ground in frost-free areas. Takes sun to semi-shade.

📚 Instructions how to make tea from tea leaves (PDF)

🛒 Plant your own Tea Tree

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🌈 Mango Rainbow tasting table: what's the taste of that Mango variety?

We just had a mango tasting table of a few early and mid-season varieties and here is our impression:

• 🟠 Tommy Atkins (purple) - the earliest variety, sweet a juicy, but a bit fibrous. The fruit is super colorful! The tree is an excellent producer, vigorous and problem-free.
• 🟠 Haden (red) - a full sweet flavor, less fibrous than Tommy. Very colorful, large fruit.
• 🟠 Florigon (yellow-green, round) - completely fibreless, sweet and flavor is somewhat mild pineapple-like.
• 🟠 Baptiste (bright yellow) - very sweet, firm flesh, good flavor.
• 🟠 Val Carrie (green elongated) - reminds large Asian mangoes, with firm flesh, very sweet, fibreless and juicy. It is a cross between Valencia Pride (large fruit) and Carrie (excellent flavor). It took the best from its parents. Very aromatic flesh has no fiber at all.
• 🟠 Kent (large green-and-red) - excellent flavor, large size, and very little fiber. Eat before fruit gets too ripe.

❔ What Mango varieties have you tried this year?
Share in comments 👇

📝 See also earlier posts:

• 🔸 5 most Favorite Mango Varieties
• 🔸 Top 10 Dwarf "Condo" Mango
• 🔸 Top 5 vigorous growers and reliable producers
• 🔸 Top 5 exotic Mango varieties for rare fruit collection
• 🔸 How to grow a mango tree
• 🔸 How to protect mango fruit from rodents

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Use your yard instead of being used by your yard!

Tired of mowing a boring lawn? Get some colors in your yard and grow edible landscape!

Select useful, functional plants:
🌺 Spectacular Eye Candies

• 👉#Nature_Wonders

🌳 Hedges with Benefits

• 👉#Hedges_with_benefits

Butterfly Attractors

• 👉#Butterfly_Plants

🍒 Food Forest
👉#Food_Forest

Pick the right plants with TopTropicals free expert help.
At TopTropicals, we have 25 years experience growing rare tropical fruit trees and flowering plants.

Plants are the best therapists.
You can Grow Happiness - we can help.

💥 Still not a subscriber? Join TopTropicals community and you will know everything about tropical plants!

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How to make healthy food taste delicious? Longevity Spinach Super-food Recipes.

• ☘️ Gynura procubens (Longevity Spinach, Okinawa Spinach) is one of the Superfoods, known for its longevity-promoting properties in traditional medicine.
• ☘️ Native to Indonesia, commercially grown in China. It is a relatively hardy perennial that once planted, you will have these healthy greens for many years!
• ☘️ Both the stems and the leaves are edible and nutritious, can be eaten raw or cooked. They have a unique flavor with a faint hint of pine, and will add a beautiful aesthetic element to cuisine.
• ☘️ This green is also known as cholesterol spinach, and there are many claims that it lowers can cholesterol.
• ☘️ Perfect for hot and humid climates unlike traditional Spinach that only grown in cooler areas. It will thrive in any type of soil, any type of light other than dark shade, and is pest-free.
• ☘️ Very adaptable to container gardening and even grows well on a windowsill.
• ☘️ The leaves and young shoot tips can be steamed, used in stir fry, tempura, stews, and soups. Just add them at the very end.

Check out the recipes⬇️⬇️⬇️

📚 Gynura: Longevity Spinach Superfood Recipes

🎥 Best Hot Weather Spinach Crops - Longevity and Okinawa Spinach

🛒 Plant Longevity Spinach and live long

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🍇 How Mulberry fruit helps with diabetes

• 💜 Mulberry Tree (Morus x Alba hybrids) originated from China. Everyone knows this sweet, tasty, juicy fruit but very few people are aware of its amazing health benefits.
• 💜 Mulberry fruit can lower blood sugar levels in patients with diabetes. They improve the absorption of carbohydrates in the gut. Eating this fruit slows the breakdown of sugar in the stomach so that it's absorbed more slowly into the blood. This helps the body keep blood sugar levels in a healthy range.
• 💜 Mulberry fruit have a low glycaemic index, making them suitable to consume after meals to avoid spikes in sugar levels.
• 💜 More health benefits of Mulberry:

- help prevent fatty liver diseases, and lower cholesterol levels.
- Mulberry leaves show their benefits against cardiometabolic risks, including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, antiobesity
- Due to flavonoids and other phytochemicals, Mulberry juice has been shown to have anti-cancer properties, specifically against breast cancer cells.
• 💜 Mulberry is called Tree of Life for a reason.

Revelation 22, Verse 2: "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
• 💜 Mulberry Tree is very cold hardy and can grow in wide range of climate zones, from USDA 5 to 10. Dwarf cultivars available - perfect for container culture. One of them is called Dwarf Everbearing - it fruits virtually year around!

🛒 Plant your own Mulberry tree

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What is the best Avocado variety? Five more most popular Avocado cultivars - total of 10!

🏆 We introduced 5 most popular varieties in our previous post. Here is 5 more, making it 10 total.

6. Joey - very cold hardy variety. Produces medium size, egg shaped purple-black fruit. It has excellent flavor. Heavy bearer. Season: September-October. It survived temperatures around 10F near San Antonio, Texas (Zone 8b). Can take temperatures down to 15F for a short period of time without significant damage.

7. Day - green, smooth skin and is shaped like a club. The fruit is of very good quality and has a nice buttery consistency. The slender tree is very cold tolerant and produces July through September.

8. Ulala (Super Hass) - sometimes called Uhlala or Uh-La-La. Cold hardy variety that can take temperatures down to 18F for short period of time without significant damage. The fruit is black skinned, with smooth texture. Seed is very small.

9. Fantastic - very cold hardy variety, supposedly the most most cold hardy of all avocados. Produces green, paper thin skin. The fruit has a creamy texture. It survived temperatures around 10F near San Antonio, Texas (Zone 8b) and can take temperatures down to 15F for short period of time without significant damage.

10. Monroe - inherited from its Guatemalan-type parent some degree of cold hardiness. In addition, the trees produced a very large, elliptical-shaped fruit with good eating qualities. Good producer, commercial cultivar in Florida. Legend has it that "it was found in Homestead, Florida on a cool dark rainy night after a meteor crashed into an abandoned papaya plantation."

📚 Learn more: Avocado Variety Guide - check this out for interactive chart of Avocado varieties and sort them by flower type A or B, tree habit, fruit shape and quality, cold hardiness, origin, season and more!

❔ What is your favorite Avocado variety?
Share in comments👇

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🍾 What is the safest alcohol?

• 🍹"Rum and Tequila are the safest alcohol drinks", - says Addiction Specialist, - "But only when consumed in combination with fruit juice".
• 🍹Rum is considered the "safest" alcohol due to its content of zinc, potassium, and phosphorus, which result in a less aggressive impact on the liver. It should be mixed with fruit juice such as Mango or Orange (Check out our Mango Gelato Recipe)
• 🍹 Tequila, often consumed with salt and lemon, introduces sodium chloride and vitamin C into the body, which can help reduce hangovers.

📸 Mango Xoai Thuong (Elephant)
Citron 'Buddha's Hand' (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis)
Variagated Lemon "Pink Lemonade"

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